Dear world, I love pumpkin spice everything and you can just deal with it.

I know people like me get mocked by people like you who get annoyed with everything getting pumpkinified as soon as the leaves change and fall on wet steps, increasing the chances of slipping, falling and cracking our heads in an epic-arm flailing disasters of comedic failure. Pumpkin spiced everything diminishes my concern about the dangerous, slippery leaves, and leaves me feeling hopeful instead of doomed.

If I could, I’d pumpkin spice my shampoo. I’d pumpkin spice my dogs. I’d pumpkin spice the postal workers who can’t seem to smile because maybe there’s a government mandate against it, in which case you’d think they’d smile all the time.

I write this as I’m drinking pumpkin spiced coffee, and if I had one suggestion I’d ask that it have more pumpkin in it. No, not the famous latte from a certain popular coffee chain, but actual pumpkin-spiced beans. Yes, as I was about to pick up vanilla flavored ground coffee, I saw the pumpkin spiced coffee and knew it would be love. The beans smell like a pumpkin donut, and when brewed, my house smells of Christmas and joy. It pleases my cold and jaded heart, and life becomes not so drizzly. Also, I am aware that flavored beans are usually of a crappier quality. Which could be why my digestive system reacts as it does to these beans. Alas, I do not care enough.

I’ve rummaged through cupboards to find my pumpkin spice candles. They’re lit.

Last week I got dinner for my parents and neglected to get a pumpkin pie for dessert because I wanted to be “nutritious.” My stubbornly “healthy” heart filled with regret and drowned in figurative tears.

When I realized I’d forgotten to pick up pumpkin puree yesterday with which to make pumpkin spiced treats, my insides shriveled like an old pumpkin and I cursed myself and my need to flee Walmart like a jelly-fingered toddler flees his mother.

I long for pumpkin spiced perfume. Maybe then I would wear perfume.

As I pour my second pot of pumpkin spiced coffee and plan my excursion into town so I might buy pumpkin puree with which I shall bake pumpkin donuts and tell my needing-to-be-healthy-all-the-time body to just suck it up and deal with it, I wanted to remind you that us pumpkin heads are people too, and we have rights. To have everything pumpkined.

Yours in pumpkin,

Courtney