Sounds Like Church

What's your problem?

It's late October.

So?

Late October is not early October.

Tell me something I don't know.

I am serious about this.

OK - I am listening.

Early October is an extension of summer these days. You get these impossibly warm days, days that are full of promise and reprieve. The trees are bursting with color even though that color signals death. Suddenly it is October 26 and reality crashes the party.

How?

Suddenly it is 36 degrees on your drive home from work. You know when you step out of your car wearing only a thin sweatshirt, you will shiver. The day was overcast and grey. Tomorrow will be overcast and grey.

Happens every year, Bubba.

I don't give a shit how often it happens or how predictable it is. It is depressing, get it? It smothers hope and gives birth to despair.

OK, OK - lighten up. I am just trying to understand where you are coming from.

You will never understand where I am coming from.

At least I am trying.

I want to pack it in at this time of year. I want to curl up into a ball and never leave the house. I don't want to have to communicate with one other human being unless I can count on perfect truth. Which I cannot.

I am sorry you feel this way.

Doesn't matter how you feel. Sympathy, even empathy, does me no good.

(Silence).

Sorry. Don't mean to burden you with all this. It's just that it not easy for someone like me to keep counter punching. My fists are bruised and my arms grow weary.

Want to go to Taco Bell? We could pig out on junk food and then motor over to Grililano's Bar and get shitfaced on shots and beers.

Sounds like a perfect night to me. Sounds like church.