If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Fall

In years past, when Life in the Boomer Lane had three children at home, it was easy to know that summer was coming to an end. One tip-off was that there were no toys left in fewer than six pieces. A second was that her family had reached its critical mass of three trips to the emergency room. The slam dunk was that the family bank account was suddenly depleted by Sears, Marshalls, TJ Maxx, and Public Shoe Store, in an attempt to provide the family spawn with clothing that didn’t blare “Hayes Park Tot Camp” or “Jar Jar Binks is Rad.”

Nowadays it’s more difficult to know when summer is about to end. Both Now Husband and Miracle the Cat continue their usual routine year round, and give no indication of being aware that the calendar pages are flipping by. They nap and eat out of their favorite bowls. Now Husband sets aside a portion of each day to stare at the computer screen and Miracle the Cat does the same with the nearest blank wall. Both enjoy Hogan’s Heroes reruns and anything on the aliens channel.

For this reason, LBL is always in danger of continuing to apply self-tanner and wear white shoes right up to Halloween, when small unidentifiable creatures come to the door, demand candy, and then mock her legs and shoes.

This year, she has a plan for the transition of the seasons. She has been called for jury duty the day after Labor Day. This is an especially interesting time to be sitting in court, both for jurors and for the accused. All have probably just recently returned from the beach, where they were, unbeknownst to each other, spending days playing beach volleyball with each other and helping each other apply sunscreen. The only positive note in all this (and that applies to the accused) is that National Beheading Day will have been celebrated the day before the trial begins.

If LBL is chosen for the jury she will lose a critical week in closet switching (which she actually stopped doing in 1998 anyway) and will sit in the jury box, listening carefully to all arguments presented by both defense and prosecuting attorneys. She will also listen carefully to all testimony given, and will focus especially on any weapons given in evidence. On September 5, while still a juror, she will then observe Choose Pizza Day, since she is pretty religious about this particular holiday.

She will also think about all the brilliant, engaging, and hilarious posts she could be writing, instead of being stuck sitting in a courtroom. She will console herself by reminding herself that on normal occasions, she does not write brilliant, engaging, and hilarious posts anyway. All readers who agree are invited to not comment.

She will be relieved that she isn’t serving on either September 15, Felt Hat Day, September 23, Dogs in Politics Day and September 16, Stay Away from Seattle Day (easy to observe from the jury) and Collect Rocks Day (a bit more difficult).

Readers: Mark your calendars for September 3, the emotional start of fall. Go out and be amazed and overwhelmed by the annual extravaganza of color that nature provides us free-of-charge each year. Or stay home and go through your clothes from last winter and be amazed and overwhelmed by their somehow having gotten smaller during their months of captivity in your attic closet. Or just sit around and stare at your computer screen and wonder why there are no updates from Life in the Boomer Lane.

If you fit into that last category (if not into last year’s clothes), feel free to re-read any one of the almost 500 posts LBL has written. For that alone, she should be sitting side-by-side with the accused and not in the jury box.