Fall in the South: Living in Seasonal Purgatory

It’s that time of the year again, ladies! You woke up… chilly? Is that the right word? My, I haven’t felt this sensation since one of these freaks flushed the toilet  while I was showering!  After you check to confirm that one of your kids didn’t change the thermostat to 42 degrees while you slept, a single tear of bliss trickles down your cheek, and you raise your hands to the air while spinning in circles like you’re Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. FALL IS HERE!!!!

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Somebody, open the windows! I can almost hear the mosquitos dying. Quick, bring me a latte! The hot kind! I want to feel my tongue burn! Where are my boots? My wool scarf? That cute sleeveless top is dead to me. Is it too soon to wear a parka!? Certainly not. PLAID! FLANNEL! THOSE CUTE HATS THAT INSTAMOMS CAN PULL OFF, BUT I DEFINITELY CAN’T!

Now that you’re looking like Pumpkin Spice Barbie, it’s time to dress up those children in those adorable puffer vests and overpriced toddler boots they’ve finally grown into. Oh, you’d like to wear shorts? TOO BAD! You’ll wear corduroy pants and YOU WILL LIKE IT!

You leave the house feeling like a million bucks. I look so good, y’all. My kids look like they just stepped out of J. Crew’s fall catalog. I should totally Instagram this! #fallyall Hi, haters!

By lunch time, though, things start to change. WHY IS IT 90 DEGREES OUTSIDE? My makeup is sliding off my face in sheets. Can you see sweat stains through these three cardigans? Why does the weather insist upon stealing my joy?!

You power through, though. NEVER LET THEM SEE YOU FALTER.

You walk in to pick up the kids from school looking like nine miles of backroad. No one will notice, you still look great!

As you round the corner to your child’s classroom, you spot him: your child looking like an extra in Spring Break Rager 2018. That’s not what I sent him to school in, you think. Are those… booty shorts!?

“So sorry, ma’am. He was playing on the playground and turned beet red. We think he might have overheated in those… tundra clothes you sent him in.”

Meanwhile, you’re sweating like a woman of the night at a Billy Graham convention. You know that scene in Bridesmaids, when Kristen Wiig tries her darndest to pretend that she doesn’t have food poisoning, while sweating buckets and gagging while she eats a jordan almond? Yeah. It’s like that. Except… real life.

You saddle your kids into the minivan and crank the A/C, bitter tears mixing with sweat. You make it home in time to peel off your adorable pants and leave them in a pile in the doorway. You have been WRONGED.

A half-empty latte sits mockingly on the kitchen counter. It’s as cold as you were this morning.

Why is this happening to me? I recycle! I stopped asking for straws in restaurants! I BRING MY OWN BAGS TO TARGET AND I’VE MADE A CONSCIOUS EFFORT TO USE LESS TOILET PAPER! I will stop climate change one plush, ultra-absorbant square at a time.

Alas, I am defeated. Sweaty, nearly naked, and out-of-breath. When will I start working out again?

The world may never know.

But, for real, are we supposed to wear in this Fall southern purgatory? Mama is HOT AND BOTHERED.