Fear and loathing.

Today is August 10, and therefore it is Halloween again, right?

Must be. This picture was taken in the supermarket last Thursday.

Eek. Glow-in-the-dark monster toys inside Kinder Joy eggs. That doesn't sound too summery, does it?

Nope, we've clearly skipped the bulk of August and the totality of September and dropped right into Halloween country.

But maybe it's just candy, right? They have to make their money where they can, and summer's not a big candy time like Easter and Christmas. So they push the envelope a little, so what?

Oh yeah, strawman-who-is-probably-a-Halloween-scarecrow? This was in the supermarket Saturday:

So pumpkin spice has begun its annual sprinkle onto anything and everything. Pumpkin spice cereals, muffins, pancakes, deli meats, condoms, whatever. Like MacArthur, it has returned.

The year seemed to be dragging quite a bit until I saw this stuff. It still felt like March. Now suddenly it feels like it's going to be Christmas in no time, and we'll have endured a year of lockdown-drag-out fights over masks and money and the damned Chinese Death Virus. Instead of being stuck in time, I feel like it's been a huge waste of it. And that's unnerving. Because whatever you think about time, we each only have so much of it.

So that seemed pretty scary. And then I was on the highway, and New York scared me again:

Obey the sign? It's bad enough we have to obey Sonny "Evil-Eyes" Corleone in Albany; now we have to obey his inanimate objects as well? 

I know what they mean (speed limits were being enforced), but this is a haughty attitude, not appropriate for a supposedly free people. 

Man, everything's getting scary out there.