Tag Archives: pumpkin spice latte

I don’t know who she is. I don’t know her name or what she looks like. All I know is that she ruined everything. 

She just couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Just had to declare it from every virtual rooftop she had downloaded on her phone. And then all the others joined in. And now, they are the laughingstock of the Internet. 

It didn’t have to be this way. There was no need to go public with how basic they were. No one had to know how they bought a pumpkin spice latte when it was still 85 degrees. No one had to be privy to their almost slavish devotion to leggings paired with boots. Let alone their adoration for faux fur-lined vests. 

Which is why if I ever find out who the first woman was to openly declare how much she loves fall, I’m going to strangle her with my infinity scarf. 

Why do I care so much, you ask? Because…(*whispers*) I’m one of them. 

And now, thanks to one million Instagram accounts overloaded with photos of ladies holding up a red leaf to their eye while they coyly smile at the camera (#snuggleweather), the world knows we all exist. And just how ridiculous we are. 

And they hate us. 

Oh sure, you could argue (and you would, in fact, be correct in arguing this) that I’m part of the problem. That just because I try to keep my basic-ness a secret doesn’t make me any better than the rest. But I didn’t ask to be this way.

Do you think this Aprill spelled with two L’s wants to be lumped in with all the Britanni’s spelled with an “i” and Megyn’s spelled with a “y”? That I want to wear vintage T-shirts featuring movies I’ve never seen or bands I’ve never listened to underneath my cozy knee-length cardigan (a knee-length cardigan that is just one of the 67 in my collection)? 

Do you think I want to race to my closet as soon as September 1st arrives and pull out my favorite furry slippers while wrapping both of my hands around a mug of green tea and sighing contentedly while I look out a window? Or that I want to curl up with a good book and read all day as soon as the temperature drops below 70 (my moleskin notebook and fancy pen placed just so beside me)? That I want to waste time scouring Pinterest for decorating ideas before realizing I suck at decorating and end up just shoving some sunflowers into a pumpkin? 

Do you think I want to be the person who only eats gourd-flavored baked goods for three months straight? Or that I want to be the person who snort lines of cinnamon like it’s cocaine while chugging apple cider martinis?

No. I don’t. I don’t want to be a part of this cliche. But here I am, frolicking in the pumpkin patch with the rest of my basic brethren. 

I wasn’t raised this way. I was raised in a home where hoodies were merely something you threw on when it got cold. Where coffee was something you drank black. Where fall was simply just another season. My mom didn’t own Ugg boots or oversized, non-prescription, black frame glasses. No one in my family drank beer that was any flavor other than beer. The only candles that burned inside our house were birthday candles.

As a young girl growing up in the ‘90’s, wearing my torn flannel shirt and purple lipstick with my Nirvana CD blasting from my gigantic boombox, I never dreamed that I’d turn into that grown woman who lights 43 pumpkin-scented candles and asks her husband to cuddle on the couch in our Halloween jammies while we watch a “Gilmore Girls” marathon. In fact, I’m pretty sure that young girl would kick my ass with her Doc Marten boots if she knew what I became. 

But I can’t help myself. I don’t know if it’s nature or nurture. If I was brainwashed by the powerful pumpkin farmer lobby in Washington or if Eve herself made an apple-scented candle with the forbidden fruit and then knitted a cozy yet stylish hat out of fig leaves. All I know is that, as much as I try to fight it, I love all this fall crap. And now, courtesy of Hayleigh and Bayleigh and Jyssycah, I am the butt of several thousand Internet jokes.

So, thanks a lot, ladies. You just couldn’t keep quiet, could you? Couldn’t just let us all continue to worship this time of year secretly in the privacy of our own homes. Had to blast it out there, with no thought of all the shrapnel that would rain down on the rest of us.  

I swear, I’d throw this venti Salted Caramel Mocha latte in all your faces…

…if only it didn’t taste so good.

…(Sip)…