Your autumn

As summer fades away and you realize that you did absolutely nothing of interest to anyone, you should embrace the coming autumn as a fresh chance to waste yet another season. If you live someplace that has real seasons, you should get excited by the idea of going to do autumn-y things, like watching the leaves turn, or going for a hike in the forest, or paying attention in that class you're taking, knowing full well that you won't do any of that. The fall television lineup should be the only thing that you're reasonably sure you might take advantage of.

You should also reflect on how sweet the death in the air tastes and what that might say about you as a person. You hate the spring because of allergies; you hate the summer because it makes you feel fatter, more lonely, and decidedly more sweaty and smelly than you normally do. The only time you come close to a feeling of happiness is when the world is literally dying all around you. This, among countless other things, is what makes you awful.

Autumn also brings new opportunities for fraudulence that are weather-specific. The clothing you wear can now be layered and used over and over. If you have a light jacket you like to don when it gets a little nippy outside, make sure you never get it dry cleaned and that it has never been dry cleaned in the past. There should be split-pea soup stains on one or more of the lapels of your jacket and these stains should be from at least one year ago (preferably two). If you smoke, now is a good time to increase your intake, like when bears binge on food before the winter, since when it gets really cold you'll obviously stop smoking because going outside to smoke will be too painful. Yeah. You sure will quit smoking this winter. Mhm.

Speaking of winter, as you prepare for it, be sure not to use any of your time or money this autumn to buy anything like a winter coat or boots. These should only be purchased after the SECOND snow storm of the winter. Why second? Because only by then will you be desperate, cold and bruised enough to finally drag yourself into a Filene's Basement to spend money on a coat that will certainly not fit you since all that will be left on the racks are coats that could cover an entire house or be snug on a squirrel. Your coat should always make you look like you have severe mental problems.

The only preparation for winter that you should do this autumn is to go to the bar and set up 182372187 online dating accounts in the desperate hope of finding someone to keep you company in the winter. If you've done autumn right, by the end of it you'll be broke, still sadly single, own nothing but shorts and tank-tops and have come one step closer to full-blown alcoholism.