It's Still Summer

Okay, retailers, listen up. It’s still summer.

I am determined not to give up summer until its last day - September 21st, but you have been trying to force fall on me since the first week of August when you started advertising school supplies in the local sales circulars.

It could be that you are trying to earn some income in this slow economy or that you have central Jersey mixed up with other states where school actually starts mid-August or that cash-strapped families are trying to spread out the cost of school supplies. Be that as it may, I was not in the school supply mode.

Your advertising marched on with school clothes, dorm supplies, “fall is for planting” nursery campaigns, turkey platters, fall linens, and dire warnings about the upcoming price of heating oil.

But the straw that broke this camel’s back this week was watching the Shop Rite stockers putting up shelves of Halloween candy. Initially I thought I must have misunderstood…it was some packaging that just happened to be orange and black. I actually walked over to the mounting displays to check and it was then that I saw that the wrappings were, in fact, decorated with pumpkins and witches.

Who the heck are these people buying their Halloween candy in August and once they have purchased it, how do they resist the temptation to eat it and then have to buy more to give out to the kids…uh-oh. I think I now understand the retailer’s strategy.

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My fight to preserve summer has apparently been futile except in my little corner of the universe where I am still weeding the garden, bringing in little bouquets of zinnias and real vine-ripened tomatoes, watching momma birds feed their almost grown babies, enjoying this summer’s still-spotted fawns, and trying to buy a new bathing suit.

I will never again worry that if I purchase Halloween candy at the beginning of October, it will be stale by October 31st.