Although Labor Day isn't for another week, some people think Monday is the end of summer because it's the last day of August. The rest are in denial.
Which faction do you belong to?
Faction No. 1: The camp that says, "I hate sentences that end with a preposition, so I'm not reading any more." Fine. To which camp do you belong, then?
Hello? You still there? Aw, they left.
Faction No. 2: Summer ends when August ends. "Summer" and "September" are incompatible subjects. At 12:01 a.m. Sept. 1, a gear in the back of your head clicks into place, and your brain reorients itself, replacing "lemonade" with "cider," "swimsuits" with "sweaters," "baseball" with "football," "grass" with "leaves" and "beer" with "that other beer that has a darker color, and tastes somewhat bitter."
Faction No. 3: It's ridiculous to think summer ends before Labor Day. We all know that the season continues in full strength until people have the last holiday cookout. "What a great summer night this is," people say. "Yes, it certainly is summer," someone replies, "a summer that is still going on, right now, and will do so until about 11 p.m. when the sense of finality slowly descends like a heavy curtain. But that's hours away and seems purely theoretical at this point!"
That used to be me. When I was a kid, summer ended when Jerry Lewis cried at the end of the Labor Day Telethon. He sat on a stool, smoked a cigarette, sang "You'll Never Walk Alone" and wept. If we had been required to go back to school the instant he put out his cigarette, I wouldn't have been surprised at all.
The only sensible thing to do is carve out the first week of September and give it to August. Alas, that would diminish the lovely month of September, so we'd take a week from October. But that would mean only three weeks of Halloween, when we know we are legally required to have a double-fortnight of leering pumpkins. So knock down November by one week, and everyone is happier. November is like eating four sofa cushions made of congealed stuffing. It's too long.
