No offense to anyone who loves fall, but: ugh.

So if Labor Day is unofficially the last day of summer, then I guess that means today is unofficially the first day of fall.

Thereby making it my least favorite day of the year. Because without question, fall is my least favorite season.

Allow me to indulge in a little mini tirade. (As if you didnʻt already figure out thatʻs whatʻs going on here.) Can someone please explain to me whatʻs so great about autumn? One minute youʻre relaxed, tanned, and not having to dress in layers; youʻre drinking ice tea/margaritas/lemonade by the pool/lake/ocean — the next, youʻre all, get serious! back to work! and there you are, toiling away under the fluorescent lights in your windowless cubicle.

And when you go back to work, not only are you not wearing white anymore, but youʻre limited by apparel retailers to selecting from among black, brown and charcoal gray for your wardrobe choices. Mostly black. And thatʻs not even a very good color for you.

Iʻm convinced that people who claim fall is their favorite season are eternal optimists. They’d have to be, to think that fall colors, crisp air, Halloween, football, etc. are just the best things ever and canʻt wait to be raking leaves and cozying up to the fireplace with their hot chocolate.

You can have it. Since I’m from the tropics, none of that’s happening for me anyway. Except of course Halloween, which is hands down my least favorite holiday (a whole other story; don’t get me started), and football, which I have to grudgingly admit is for me the exception that proves the rule. But it seems like it’s the intangibles of fall that are the hardest to get around.

You know, like how your to-do list grows from one or two items to a dozen or twenty overnight. And now you have endless soccer practices to drive back and forth to, and homework checks, and parent-teacher conferences, and late (takeout) dinners, and shorter days on top of it all. Which means commuting in the dark. Both ways.

And by the time Thanksgiving rolls around, you’re just thankful that fall and its attendant unpleasantness is mostly behind you, and at least now you have Christmas to look forward to. Which the retailers have been helpfully reminding you since about mid-October.

Sigh. I’m no eternal optimist, obviously, so I’ll just bear with this season and try to remember that summer’s just nine months away. Practically right around the corner.