Column by Allison Borthwick, Opinion Editor

Fall is the most confusing season.

It’s like a temperamental youth struggling through adolescence – it never knows what it wants, is hot one second and cold the next, leaves things all over the floor (pun intended) and makes people emotional.

There’s so much hype and excitement building up to it. People lose their minds over leaves changing colors, sweaters, flannels, apple picking, pumpkins and all things pumpkin flavored. But, in true fall fashion, our expectations clash with reality.

Sweater weather is replaced by shorts weather because for some reason it’s 70 degrees and sunny throughout the first week of November. It rains more during October than it did during the entirety of spring. Our pumpkin spice lattes have to be iced because it’s too warm out.

Furthermore, fall always seems to be over as quickly as it begins, especially in comparison to how long the other three seasons seem to last. It’s like there are 500 days of summer, 400 days of spring, 25 days of fall and then winter lasts for approximately 80 years. This is also the time of year where the sun starts setting at 5 p.m. like some sort of grouchy senior citizen, leaving us all to fend for ourselves in the dark like neglected grandchildren.

This isn’t a game, Grandma Autumn. This is my LIFE. And I would appreciate if you had more to offer me than dried prunes and darkness. Maybe instead of going to bed so early you can go get IHOP’s senior special and leave us to enjoy the rest of our day in peace.

I shouldn’t be able to sit through a lie detector test at 6:30 p.m., be asked what time it is, confidently say “midnight” and pass the test with flying colors.

This probably all sounds like the rantings and ravings of a person who hates fall, but that’s not the case. I love fall – we’re just having some relationship issues right now.

I’m also bitter and disheartened by the fact that people are actively trying to skip past fall and jump right into winter.

I walked into Dollar Tree the other day to get some last minute cat ears like any other respectable 21-year-old before Halloween and was assaulted by a winter wonderland of Christmas decorations. There were no cat ears or seasonal respect in sight. Being an optimistic, happy-go-lucky Dollar Tree shopper is hard enough as is, but that day I walked out of the store with nothing more than my God-given human ears and shattered hopes.

Where’s the respect for Halloween – a day where it’s perfectly acceptable for people of all ages to eat insane amounts of candy while dressed up as Satan? What about Thanksgiving – a day where there’s nothing wrong with covering everything, including yourself, in gravy? How are we just going to skip these beautiful, food-centric holidays and focus solely on Christmas?

What would Jesus do? I’ll tell you what Jesus would do: Jesus would stop being so disrespectful of Halloween and Thanksgiving. He would want you to celebrate His birthday on December 25 and not a day earlier. Last time I checked, Jesus wasn’t a diva.

Now go out there and hug a pumpkin or something.