10 Reasons to Love October (Like You Needed Any)

Ahhh!  October is finally here.  The best month of the year has officially arrived and I could not be more thrilled.  I won’t waste too much time jocking on my favorite month so, without further ado, here are 10 reasons to like October.  As if you needed them.

1.  It’s The Unofficial Sponsor of Beer Festivals Everywhere

Oktoberfest, Octoberfest, and Octobeerfest are all festivals held in this glorious month.  How can you not love a month that celebrates beer drinking in high quantities?  Virtually all of the beer companies roll out delicious fall-themed beers and trying them all only makes October that much better.  Personally, I plan on drinking so much OctoBeer that I don’t sober up until it’s Christmas time.  November’s overrated anyway, right?

2.  Football, Football, and More Football

There’s pro football on Sunday.  College on Saturday.  Hell there’s even Lingerie football on MTV-Whatever if that’s what you’re into.  If you are, let me just say this: perv.  I watch football every day of the week but Tuesday and Wednesday.  Starting Thursday night I turn into a catatonic, football-absorbing machine that can hardly be roused except to enjoy the aforementioned beer.  Huskers, Nighthawks, and any NFL game worth a damn, are all just another reason to love October.

3. The Leaves Start Changing Colors

Bear with me here, before you start calling me a pansy or a hapless romantic.  Keep in mind here, all you haters, that we do live in Nebraska, which means that we’re pretty hard-pressed for any good scenery.  When the leaves change over we finally get to enjoy some of the limited perks that living in a state that’s flatter than a wall street “profits” graph. 

We may not have mountains, beaches or, hell, hardly anything but miles of cornfield, but at least our leaves change into beautiful crimson, gold and brown.

4. The Weather Starts to Cool Off…Finally

This one’s not all that different from #3.  But, as anyone who’s suffered through a Nebraska August can attest, it’s worth devoting more than just one paragraph to.   August in Nebraska is so hot that Satan would probably buy a pool membership.  We spend the entire month lacquered in enough sweat to make Shaq’s dripping close-ups at the free-throw line look like amateur hour and then we follow that up with September, which is kind of like the Coke Zero version of August.  Damn near the same thing, but with just enough fluctuations to call it something different.  So when August and September get done tag-teaming us we’re so ready for a breath of cool air that October feels like leaping into the pool right after an hour in the hot tub.

5. Halloween Candy

In true, legally obese fashion, I’m a sucker for Halloween candy.  Candy Corn, all the special “fall candies”, and especially the Mallow Pumpkins, that have been calling to my inner (and outer for that matter) fat guy like the Sirens called to Odysseus’ crew ever since they reached the shelves of local grocers in late summer.  I buy the candy “just in case we get trick or treaters” every year, which is code for “I’m going to eat the whole bag before it’s even the 23rd of the month” and then I buy some more when it goes on sale at every store known to man.  I feel like I need to go get on a treadmill just writing about all this stuff.  But I’ll probably just go have a Twix.

6. Halloween Costumes

Halloween costumes are cute on kids and can be fun to design when you’re an adult. It’s always fun to dress up and party and it’s equally fun to see what the latest trend in costume fashion will be.  (*Author’s note: I’m predicting even more “Jersey Shore” costumes this year) However, #6 comes with some serious consequences.  Some girls see this holiday as an opportunity to unleash their inner skank, dress up wearing less than Saran wrap, and flounce about town looking like they’re ready to put in their audition tape for “Rock of Love.” 

No worries, though, says some un-written law of Halloween when you’re in college, you can always say it’s “just a costume.”  Dudes can throw on that skirt and tight t-shirt they’ve had in the closet and think that it’s cool to let their hairy cleavage out for some fresh October air.  Neither of these is cool, but since you can’t get people dressed up without some consequences I can deal with them.

#7.  The NBA Starts

I know that a lot of my readers probably don’t like the NBA.  That doesn’t bother me, but I’m more excited for this year’s NBA season than any in recent memory.  There’re great storylines, intriguing matchups, and much, much more that I will delve deeper into in a later blog post.  October 26th and 27th, you better believe I’ll have my remote ready for the best athletes in the world.

#8.  Baseball is Finally Over

I’m a notorious baseball hater amongst my friends and a noted sports fanatic that struggles infinitely with the simple act of turning off ESPN for more than 23 minutes.  So imagine my joy when football takes over completely.  Imagine how glad I am that not only is the WNBA wallowing in complete anonymity like it deserves, but soon we will no longer be subjected to Tim Kurkjian breaking down Derek Lowe’s WHIP or his lifetime stats against left-handed hitters wearing purple on thursday nights.  The highlight packages will no longer include golf, WNBA, or MLB?  That’s my idea of paradise.

#9.  Good Horror Movies

With enough horror movies to watch one a day for the rest of your life, the period of horror movie mayhem that begins in mid-October and stretches until Halloween is the penultimate stretch of terror-T.V.  I will watch “The Shining” and “Halloween” a minimum of 22 times in the next 25 days.  I will see so many steady-cam shots, blurred-out-for-cable nudity and hear so many “chi-chi-chi. . .ah-ah-ah”s from “Friday the 13th” that my head will literally be spinning like the girl from “The Exorcist.”

#10.  Bad Horror Movies

Truth be told, I might like crappy Halloween horror movies better than the good ones.  Gems like “Driller Killer,” featuring a battery operated drill used as a murder weapon and “Halloween 4” which is on literally every 2 hours on AMC the closer to Halloween we actually get, are sources of too much joy for  loser like myself.

The closer to the 31st we get, the more you’ll find me couch-side, flipping alternately between SyFy, AMC’s Fearfest, and any other channel that has a movie on involving masked serial killers stalking dumb, 20-something-year-old girls that can’t seem to stop boozing long enough to know they’re about to get stabbed.

Ahhhh!  October.

FIN