Palm trees or pumpkins? Margaritas or spiced lattes? Roll with the flow

Fall is in the air. Ah, yes. Can you smell it? Granted, I can’t smell things quite as well as I did before catching Covid last year. For instance, one the greatest aromas in the world is that of coffee brewing. At least I assume it still is. To me, it now smells a little like cat poop. But I’ve gotta have caffeine in the morning, so I’ll take my brewed cat poop with two Splendas, please.

I understand that it’s not officially fall according to the calendar, but the whole calendar system is outdated. They say fall doesn’t officially begin until the autumnal equinox on September 22, but they say a lot of stuff. They’re probably the same they that say it’s going to snow down here in Georgia this winter. They say it every winter. Never happens anymore.

Besides, no one cares about equinoxes or solstices these days, except some old Irishman spouting things like “Autumn days come quickly, like the running of a hound on the moor.”

“Mr. O’Malley, sir, for the last time, I did not steal your Lucky Charms! I got these from the dollar store, and they’re called Fortunate Flakes. They’re not even hawked by Lucky the Leprechaun but by Danny DeVito. Now get out of my driveway with your crazy rants!”

“May the cat eat you, and may the devil eat the cat!”

“Weirdo!”

There are some signs fall is in the air. I mean that literally. All through our neighborhood, folks have replaced their “Welcome, y’all” wooden signs with “Happy fall, y’all” wooden signs. Pretty soon, I may have to replace our fancy wooden sign that reads “We don’t visit, y’all” with our “Happy fall, y’all, but we still don’t visit” sign.

It’s not just on our neighborhood streets. We recently made the mistake of going into one of those Get a Hobby Home Clutter stores, and autumn had fallen all over the store — Halloween and Christmas, too. Don’t bother asking about the Labor Day or National Truck Driver Appreciation Week decorations! They’re completely out of stock! Guess I’ll have to just display that same ol’ picture of Jerry Reed as Cledus Snow from “Smokey and the Bandit” yet again — the only Snowman I get to see here in Georgia.

There are various memes going around social media that are variations on the theme of: “It’s not September 22! Sit your pumpkin spice latte-drinking butt down. I’m not finished with my margarita yet!” I don’t understand it because I thought margaritas were a year-round thing. Oopsies. But I guess the message is to enjoy the season we have now.

That’s hard to do, though. Summers have gotten hotter and humidity-er. Siberia is smokin’ above the Arctic Circle, for crying out loud. Every month seems to break some sort of record as the hottest ever in our galaxy. These days, folks start getting ready for fall sometime around June 21 — the summer solstice, which is the longest day of the year. I thought it was the longest day of the year because it comes a day after my birthday and involves a margarita-induced headache from the day before, but no.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but putting out a “Welcome, fall” sign doesn’t bring on the season because Mother Nature can’t read. We can’t simply wish autumn into existence. My high school principal believed you could wish weather into action because he warned all of us over the intercom one morning when there was a possibility that a coming winter system could bring snow and send us home later in the day: “Y’all better hope it doesn’t snow because if it does y’all will lose one of your spring break days.” Guess he feared we’d all gather round the flagpole, pray for snow and make it happen. If that truly were possible, I’d have made it snow 179 days a year back then.

So, be patient. Yeah, it’s hot. Yeah, the planet is melting. So is my frozen margarita.

“Ahhh. This is how you summer. Now, sit yo pumpkin spice latte-drinkin’ …

TAKE A LISTEN: One of the songs on my summer playlist from my hometown friend Lance Price, “Hey Margarita”: