The Beginning of the End

Before I started commuting, Fall was my favorite season. The trees burst with vibrant reds and oranges, the smell of sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie drift through the streets, and the air is refreshingly crisp and clean. How could anyone not love a time of year that so blesses the senses?

But I thought that sentimental crap before I understood what Autumn really is: the beginning of the end. A slow countdown that, day by day, takes the carefree fun out of cycling and replaces it with snow drifts, frost bite and the sour smell that happens when sweat freezes and then thaws again.

It isn't impossible to keep commuting through a Minnesota winter but it takes a lot of effort. Thick gloves. Warm coats. Goggles. Balaclava's. Studded tires. Alternate routes. It's tiring just to think about.

So the other morning when the temperature dipped to 45 degrees and I had to spend my normal-sipping-coffee-time on digging out my warm leggings I wasn't in a very good mood. When I had to locate long (matching) socks I started mumbling curses. By the time I found my fat jeans-- the only pair that fits over all that warm layering I was beyond words. The effort had officially begun. Soon I'd be waking up an hour earlier and struggling to plow my bike through snow drifts just so I wouldn't have to face swine flu infested public transit.

As I put on the first leg a tiny spider fell out and ran across the carpet.

Perfect. I hate spiders. There is nothing more disgusting... more terrifying than a close encounter with a spider and this one was brought to me exclusively by fall. Nature's gateway drug to winter. Gross, gross, gross. I pulled on the other leg. There was a small white patch near my knee. Weird. I didn't remember a patch being there last year.

Two baby spiders fell out of it.

It wasn't a patch. It was a pouch.

And if that wasn't bad enough, I could clearly make out something moving inside of it. Something big.

A large leg pushed through the side of it. Then another.

No amount of Fall Foliage on the way to work could erase the image from my mind. Or the image of me screaming while jumping up and down trying desperately to kill any other creature that made their summertime home there.

Fall blesses the senses my ass. How long until summer again?