October is the best month. Other months are garbage compared to October.

No month can even challenge October. March? Too cold (in most places). September? Too hot (in most places). November? The holiday season is a living nightmare and everyone knows it. July? Stop.

October is where it’s at, and here’s why.

Halloween, duh. The best holidays are the ones that don’t require interaction with your extended family. Candy is good. Costumes are good, if you’re into that kind of thing. Haunted houses are bad, but whatever, it’s your money. And King of the Hill’s 1997 episode “Hilloween” is masterful. February, with its simultaneously boring and stressful Valentine’s Day, can go suck a butt.

Meaningful baseball. For some of us, anyway. As a Royals fan, I’m torn between giving up on baseball for the year and getting excited about the Cubs just to have a team. Either way, the baseball situation makes months like May look like a bunch of bullshit.

Windows open Saturday mornings. This is the absolute best way to do chores, watch football, and cook something elaborate that you didn’t have time for during the week. Can January bring that kind of pleasantness? Hell no. Fuck off, January.

Meaningful football. College teams are moving into their conference schedules and away from paying Sisters of the Poor to lose by 50 points. Yeah, I’m calling you out, August, you boring loser. For fans of good-to-middling teams in power five conferences, October is an exciting month (fans of top teams in lesser conferences just get to relax, I guess). And because every conference has at least one truly bad team, the potential for a hilarious/devastating upset is still there.

Flavors other than pumpkin spice. Maple. Salted caramel. Apple cider. Pear. Chili. Is it too early for cranberry orange? It’s not that “pumpkin spice” is inherently bad; it’s that 80% of pumpkin spice products go way too hard on the nutmeg. Pumpkin, absent of overbearing spices, actually tastes like nothing. What does December have to contribute? Gingerbread? Fucking no thanks, December.

Weddings with minimal sweating. Summer weddings are gross, and even professional photographers can only do so much about pit stains and shiny faces — which is why October has become the new peak wedding season. June is a dumpster fire of a month. Bonus: Obnoxious football fans who bitch about weddings during the season will stay home, so the happy couple doesn’t have to waste valuable food and booze on these loudmouths. (But you still might want to make sure there’s a TV at your reception.)