Nine Pumpkin Candles

I want you to know something about me before we get into this: I am a disciplined man. I do not get fooled by the internet. I do not click on banner ads, I do not fall for ‘you won’t believe what happened next,’ and I definitely don’t believe a stranger online loves me and needs gift cards. But apparently my willpower has a hole in it exactly the size and shape of pumpkin candles, because somehow, without my permission, nine of them ended up in my shopping cart like they snuck in through the back door while I wasn’t looking.

How Nine Pumpkin Candles Became My Roommates

Let me paint you a picture of my living room right now. It smells like a Hallmark movie had a baby with a candle warehouse. I’ve got ‘Autumn Harvest,’ I’ve got ‘Spiced Pumpkin Patch,’ I’ve got one that’s just called ‘Cozy,’ which, Cozy? That’s not a scent, that’s a feeling, but somebody in a marketing department figured out that if you light something called Cozy, you will buy twelve of them and question nothing. My wife walked in, took one sniff, and said, ‘George, did a pumpkin die in here?’ And I said, ‘No, honey, nine of them just retired here peacefully.’

I used to make fun of people who bought seasonal candles. I’d see a woman wheeling a cart full of them out of the store in September and think, lady, it’s not even fall yet, calm down. Now I am that woman. I am the mayor of Candle Town. I have a candle for every room, including rooms that don’t have electricity yet, including, and I want to be honest with you, the garage, where I do not spend time, where there is no reason for ambiance, and yet there’s a pumpkin candle out there too, just in case my lawnmower wants to feel something this October.

The Day I Declared War on Pumpkin Candles and Lost

I tried. I really tried to fight it. I told myself, George, this year, you will not buy a single candle. You will walk right past that display at the front of the store like a man with priorities. And I did it. I walked past the big display up front feeling like an Olympic athlete, chest out, chin up, a hero of restraint. Then I turned the corner into aisle six for, I don’t know, paper towels, dish soap, something a grown man needs, and there it was again — a smaller display, a sneaky display, a display they clearly put there for guys like me who survived the first ambush. That’s when the pumpkin candles got me, right there by the paper towels, like a surprise party I didn’t throw but was somehow footing the bill for.

By the time I made it to the register, my cart looked like I was opening my own gift shop. The cashier didn’t even ask questions. She just looked at my haul, looked at me, and said, ‘Rough week?’ And I said, ‘No, ma’am, this is a good week. This is a week where I know exactly what my house will smell like until February.’

Nine Pumpkin Candles Later, I Have Accepted My Fate

Here’s the thing nobody tells you about getting older — you stop fighting the things that bring you joy, even dumb things, even things that cost twelve dollars and smell like a cinnamon stick had an argument with a pie. My wife Gina still gives me that look, you know the one, the one that says ‘we need to talk about the budget,’ but then she lights one of these herself and suddenly she’s got no notes. She’s over there wrapped in a blanket saying ‘ooh, this one’s nice, which one is this,’ and I say honey, that’s lucky number seven, we don’t name them, they’re not pets, although at this point I do feel a certain responsibility toward their wellbeing.

I’ve made peace with it. I am a man who beats the algorithm and loses to the candle aisle, and honestly, that’s a fair trade. The internet wants my data, my attention, my late night impulse control. The candle aisle just wants twelve dollars and to make my house smell like somebody’s grandmother is baking something wonderful. I know which one I trust more. So go ahead, judge me. Line up nine little jars of fall on my mantel and call it a problem if you want. I call it decorating. I call it ambiance. I call it the one battle this year I was actually happy to lose, and if that makes me predictable, fine — put it on my tombstone, here lies George, he never clicked an ad in his life, and somehow still ended up with a house full of pumpkins that never even grew in a garden.

📖 Today’s featured book: Guide to Surviving the Internet: Notifications, Nonsense, and Other Things We Pretend to Enjoy (Amelia Shade) — available now on Amazon. See the whole series.

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