It's funny what we used to consider disadvantages.

When the fall came, the leaves from the millions of trees in our yard used to fall, and fall. I tried to tell myself that I could time it perfectly and never be around to help rake them, but I always miscalculated.

Our parents used to make it a game for us. We hated that so much. Their tricks always worked. I even got my neighbor in on the game. She fell for it, too. Loading all the leaves onto the big blue tarp, only to run as fast as our little legs could take us, diving headfirst and seeing how far we could get. The spiders, dirt and dust weren't enough to hold us back. Mom and Dad used to yell because we were making a mess of the work we just did, but they couldn’t resist us.

When we blew our noses at night, it was brown.

I never thought I would miss that. I would give anything to be home during the fall.