Life Is Like

Happy day after Halloween, y’all! Now please tell me you’ll eat some of this candy.

Last year, I woefully underestimated how much candy it would take to satisfy the ghouls and goblins who roamed the streets. After three emergency trips to Target to purchase what I (mistakenly, it turns out) thought was enough chocolate to give the entire eastern seaboard diabetes, I finally just turned off all the lights in the house and sat on the couch in the dark, trying really, really hard to ignore the indignant voices of the kids outside demanding candy.

There should be a special place in after-school detention for people who make high school any harder than it has to be.

High school is horrible. The girls are mean. The boys are ... boys. The cafeteria is Darwinism in action — only the strong make it out alive (and with any sense of their own identity).

Seriously. I graduated from high school more than 10 years ago, but I still get cold and clammy when I think about having to walk those mean halls. For me, high school was a little more “The Breakfast Club” than “Ferris Bueller's Day Off.”

I am so excited for fall that I almost can’t stand it.

And yes, I know fall doesn’t officially start until Sept. 22. But as far as I’m concerned, after Labor Day it’s nothing but jeans and sweaters — though I’m still not clear on the whole “no white after Labor Day” thing. I saw a woman wearing a delightful pair of white pants on Tuesday, and “winter white” has been all the rage for the past few years. Are we OK with white year-round now? This is important stuff, people.

This week, as Lowcountry students are sharpening their pencils and writing their names in their textbooks, and college students are moving into their new dorm rooms and trying to talk Mom and Dad into giving them a credit card for “emergencies,” I am reminded of how very, very old I am.

I don’t like to think about the fact that it’s been nearly 10 years since I graduated college, and the last time I slung a backpack over my shoulder was the one and only time I went hiking — if you can call exhaustedly staggering through the woods for 20 minutes then begging to go home hiking.

I know summer is almost over, but y’all, we need to have a talk.

And it’s about our beach etiquette — or lack thereof.

Seriously, guys: Just because we live in Mother Nature’s playground doesn’t mean we should act like the bully who won’t let anyone else use the swings.

I’m starting to get a little worried about Angela Lansbury.

I know she’s still acting — she was in “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” just last year — but I think it’s time to face facts: She’s not getting any younger.

And I’m not ready to say goodbye.

Never again will I be able to believe in happy endings, fate or falling in love over the age of 30. Gone are my dreams of a Billy Crystal-Meg Ryan reunion, of a Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan reunion, of Meg Ryan reclaiming her role as America’s Sweetheart.

Meg Ryan is going to have to face it: Nora Ephron’s death might be the final nail in her career’s coffin.

I think I’ve witnessed the beginning of the end for humanity.

And, sadly, it didn’t come in the form of a Kardashian, Justin Bieber or a reality TV show about blind dates or would-be singers.

No. The beginning of the end was marked by indifference.

On Tuesday, an older gentleman fell in the Publix parking lot. And it wasn’t just a stumble, or like that time I tripped going up the stairs and skinned my knee. No, this fellow’s cane went out from under him and he went DOWN. Hard. It was a full-on, face-forward sprawl onto the asphalt.

Time to batten down the hatches, Lowcountry. Storm season’s a-comin’.

Hurricane season officially starts Friday, and you better believe I’m ready. Bring it, Mother Nature; I’m not scared of you and your torrential downpours, your gusty winds and your threat of coastal flooding.

And your threat of forcing me to evacuate and spend 18 hours stuck on Interstate 95 with about a million of my closest friends? Ha! I laugh in the face of evacuation orders ... then I cry, meekly pack my car and hit the road.

This time of year is my favorite reason to be a Lowcountry resident.

And it’s not because it’s warm enough to go to the beach without feeling like I’m there just to rub it in the face of the landlocked Midwest, or because my neighborhood pool is open, or because it stays brighter longer every day so I can pretend I’m not a hermit when I finally make it outside at the end of the day and it’s still light out.

Nope. It’s because of the food.