How to Celebrate Fall on the Cheap

* Update fall wardrobe by writing “2006” on all your old sweaters with a Sharpie. Ensure trendy look by hot-gluing current calendar page on back of all clothes.

* Take family apple-picking in neighbor’s yard. If caught, repeatedly exclaim, “Fruit belongs to no one man!” as you violently try to yank the apple tree from the ground.

* Play a rousing game of football with the family in the backyard. Make it interesting by placing a wager on the game’s outcome. Make it even more interesting by dividing the teams into “Adults” versus “Toddlers.”

* Wile away the hours by naming and getting to know every single leaf on a tree. Sob uncontrollably each time one of those leaves falls off a branch and dies. Vow never to give your heart to another again.

* Be both cost-conscious and inventive when it comes to your children’s school supplies. When kids later ask why they have to use magazine subscription card inserts as notebook paper and charcoal briquettes as writing implements, make numerous yet purposefully vague allusions to “The Man.”

* Train pet cats to Greco-Roman wrestle each other so you won’t be bored during football commercial breaks.

* Gather the family and tell horror stories in front of a roaring fireplace. Make the tales particularly effective by naming each of the stories’ murderers after an adult your children might know in the neighborhood.

* Get drunk on Halloween and go trick-or-treating as “That Asshole Neighbor Who Peed in Our Rose Bushes and Took a Swing at Our Mailbox.”