The calendar will tell you. But who needs to look at one to know that fall is now with us.

The signs are all around us. The temperature is falling so quickly that the anchor on the morning news jokes with the weather person about wind-chill factors. I wear a light jacket for the short walk from the parking lot to the lab. My radio selection has switched from sports radio to NPR as the White Sox take their annual tumble and the Bears begin another season of no distinction. Tollway billboards tout multiple haunted houses, each claiming to be more horrific than the rest.

But the sign of autumn that genuinely sends shivers through my heart? Pumpkin spice time is here.

Some brief research indicates that pumpkin spice is a mixture of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves. No, there is no pumpkin in there, the name is derived from the use of the mix in flavoring pumpkin pie and other pumpkin products.

Pumpkin spice is to me what Christmas is to Ebeneezer Scrooge. It’s all bah-humbug. The odor of pumpkin spice products annoys me and the flavor would probably annoy me even more–that is if I ever would try a pumpkin spice offering. Slim chance of that occurring!

Fortunately, the bag of pumpkin-spice-flavored-yogurt-covered-pretzels on the table in the lab breakroom (quite a mouthful) was unopened when I sat down for my pumpkin-spice-free breakfast of peanut butter and blueberries toast this morning.

But I suspect that pumpkin spice-flavored Coffee Mate will be appearing on the countertop soon. Smiley-faced cookies and bright orange doughnuts, all with that distinct taste and aroma, will follow in short order. I will suffer silently and pray that no one comes into my office with a Starbucks pumpkin spice latte. I’d far prefer to be frightened by the grim reaper in a haunted house than face that!

And the worst news of all? If autumn is here—then winter is coming!