1. Calling an associate for assistance. Look, I’m standing in your store. I have money to spend. When you put the items I need to buy, let’s say deodorant and toothpaste, behind lock and key you’ve made it very secure and there’s definitely no way I can walk off with it. But you’ve made the transaction wildly inconvenient and guaranteed that while I’m still standing in your store, I’ll purchase the item from Amazon and have it delivered to my front door before the end of the day. I get why businesses are doing it, but as a customer I won’t play that game. I have no interest in spending money with a business that is actively adding inconveniences to my day. Either sort out how to deal with shoplifters or don’t, but expecting I’ll be doing the work for you is 100% daft.

2. Five-day weekend. This past weekend was five days long. Not one of them was a day of rest. I plugged back in to work on Tuesday not feeling like there was any pause at all from the previous Wednesday. That honestly feels like no way to live a life. It was busy out of necessity, but I damned well hope the weekends that follow will be a whole lot lower effort. That feels like the only fair trade off for blowing through a five-day weekend like it was nothing.

3. The undeniability of fall. Temperatures are dropping into the 30s in the mornings now. It’s mid-October and I’m steady burning propane to keep the chill out of the house no matter how sun-shiny and clear the day looks. It’s not my favorite time of year. There’s too little heat, too little daylight, and a general sense that the only thing to do for the coming months is hunker down and wait for the promise of spring. I wouldn’t be even a little surprised if the ancients thought the arrival of autumn every year could truly mark the end of the world. I know I’m always just a little bit surprised when we come though the dark and cold and find there’s still a world on the other side of it.