🎃 October, You Beautiful Disaster

October has arrived — crisp air, crunchy leaves, hayrides, football, bonfires, chili bubbling on the stove, pumpkin patches teeming with toddlers in knit hats, and the annual ritual of Americans buying decorative gourds they will forget on the porch until mid-December when they begin to rot into a sticky, orange shame puddle. It’s the season of haunted houses, trick-or-treaters, and Target shelves vomiting up plastic skeletons, cinnamon brooms, and “Live, Laugh, Latte” signs nobody asked for.

Yes, October is supposed to be a time of joy. A time when we surrender to seasonal excess: cider donuts, corn mazes, haunted hay wagons, and those inflatable lawn witches that scare the dog half to death. It should be about choosing costumes, sipping pumpkin beer, and pretending candy corn doesn’t taste like wax crayons. But no — this is America in 2025. Which means instead of just enjoying our pumpkin-spiced bliss, we also have to wonder how Trump and his merry band of ghouls will manage to ruin yet another perfectly good month.

🎃 The Autumn of Our Discontent

Fall festivities? Love them. But mark my words: the administration will turn every last one into a political circus. Want to carve pumpkins? Don’t be surprised when the Department of Agriculture declares jack-o’-lanterns “woke” because they’re orange and thus remind people of Trump’s makeup routine.

Planning a hayride? The Environmental Protection Agency (now rebranded “The Businessman’s Best Friend”) will slap a tariff on hay because apparently it’s too socialist for farmers to grow something people can sit on without turning a profit.

Excited for Oktoberfest? Sorry, friends, Trump already renamed it “American Beer Greatness Month” and banned imported lagers because nothing says patriotism like room-temperature Bud Light brewed in Missouri.

And don’t get me started on trick-or-treating. The administration is busy drafting new candy regulations. Milky Ways will be required to carry a disclaimer: “This bar does not support migrants.” Skittles? Too rainbow. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups? Well, peanut allergies are for the weak, so eat up, snowflakes.

🍁 PSLs, Gummies, and Other Coping Mechanisms

So yes, drink that pumpkin spice latte, even if it’s overpriced sugar sludge. Pop that gummy — the one you keep in the bedside table for when politics get too loud. Pour yourself a mug of cider, and for the love of everything autumnal, make sure it’s HARD, because this administration is only tolerable with at least 7% alcohol content coursing through your bloodstream.

We’re in for thirty-one days of surprises, none of them the good kind. Some of us were hoping October would bring football, flannels, and a nice balance of cozy domesticity and spooky delight. Instead, we’re likely to get a new executive order banning scarecrows because Trump doesn’t like competition.

🦇 Expect the Unexpected

October means unpredictability. Will the leaves fall early? Will there be a frost before Halloween? And, most importantly, what fresh hell will Trump dream up to keep the nation’s blood pressure at medically inadvisable levels?

He’s already used the summer to attack the press, declare National Golf Day six times, and hold rallies at pumpkin patches where children cried not from fright but from boredom. Rumor has it this month he’ll issue a proclamation requiring everyone to say “Merry MAGA-ween” while handing out candy. And don’t be surprised if he appears on TV in a Dracula cape declaring himself “the real victim of the deep state’s garlic conspiracy.”

Meanwhile, the Cabinet will hold strategy sessions about the War on Scare Tactics — a thinly veiled plan to privatize haunted houses and charge admission fees that funnel directly into Trump Resorts International.

🥧 Don’t Forget the Pie

Normally, October is pie season. Pumpkin, apple, pecan. But I fully expect a White House press conference where Trump, fork in hand, announces that “Pumpkin Pie is now the official dessert of Real Americans,” while apple pie is rebranded “elitist coastal cuisine.” If you think I’m exaggerating, you haven’t been paying attention.

And if you were looking forward to turkey trots, Halloween parades, or cider festivals, prepare to have them hijacked for campaign rallies, complete with red hats bobbing in a sea of fallen leaves. October’s calendar is less about crisp evenings and more about crisis management.

🎃 Surviving the Spooky Season

So here’s the game plan:

• Hayrides? Bring whiskey in a thermos.
• Bonfires? Toss in a newspaper photo of Trump and let the flames do their work.
• Corn mazes? Perfect practice for escaping gaslighting press conferences.
• Pumpkin carving? Extra cathartic when you imagine you’re hollowing out Mar-a-Lago.

Laugh at the absurdity. Eat your caramel apples. Wear your cozy sweaters. Just remember: every autumn leaf falling is nature sighing, “Good luck, humans, you’ll need it.”

🍂 Final Word

October should be the month of cider kisses, crunchy leaves, haunted thrills, and pies cooling on windowsills. Instead, it’s the month we brace ourselves for whatever bat-shit decree floats out of Washington like a witch on a Roomba.

So drink up, America. Raise your pumpkin beer, your spiked cider, your spiced latte, and toast to surviving another round of autumn madness. Because this October, the scariest costume isn’t Dracula or a zombie — it’s a spray-tanned man in a red tie who thinks the Constitution is a napkin.

Happy October, my fellow ghouls. Let’s make it snarky, spooky, and survivable.

Here’s my 3 rabbits creation for the first day of the month.

RABBIT, RABBIT, RABBIT

Feel free to share!

Julie Bolejack, MBA