Today is Oct. 5th, and I have yet to see a single pumpkin on campus. No goblins. No ghouls. And not a witch to be found. I am aware that temperatures in the mid-80s might not fully constitute ‘sweater weather,’ but the utter lack of pumpkin-spiciness to date is frankly disturbing. We don’t yet know the grave (pun) effects of an un-haunted October, but one thing’s for sure: We need it this year more than ever.

As the world seems every day to be slipping deeper and deeper into a dystopian cataclysm, many have entered this all-hallowed month with malaise. What October offers us is an opportunity to escape, even for a moment, this terrifying hell for a much more festive alternative, but only if we spend the necessary time and energy to ensure this bewitching month is the spookiest of them all.

October invites us to engage in wondrously autumnal activities like apple picking and leaf-pile jumping. Unfortunately it appears most students are more caught up in the growing awareness that our world is tumbling day after day into an inescapably deep void of pain than they are with candy corn and hay rides. That is simply unacceptable. This year’s lack of harvest-time cheer sets a dangerous precedent that we should all be talking about.

During October, we are allowed—scratch that—obligated to look our morbid reality in the face and turn it into cauldrons, skeletons, and broomsticks. The constant threat of nuclear war and the increasing injustice of our societal structure should not prevent us from partaking in the honeycrisp frolicking that October requires of us. Join me in carving up this fetid pumpkin of a world into a grinning jack-o-lantern, glowing through the midnight of our collective melancholy. Here are a few tips to help you cackle your way through the month:

• Throw out literally every piece of clothing you own that isn’t black and orange. It’s impossible to be upset about the great divide between the civilization we are and the society we believe and assert ourselves to be when your entire wardrobe is spookier than an old-timey tombstone.

• Cook all your meals in a cast-iron cauldron. Nothing says October like a butternut squash risotto, seasoned with toadstools, eye of newt, and the realization that we are powerless to affect this vengeful reality.

• Replace your bed with a coffin. You’ll feel refreshed and rejuvenated every day when you crack open the lid to a Count Orlok-inspired Transylvanian casket. Plus, it’s reusable upon the occasion of your inevitable demise.

• Cast spells on your enemies. Your professor gave you a D on your Chem exam? The government is trying to murder us all through strategic negligence and tactical cruelty? Roommate getting on your nerves? Brew yourself a revenge potion and get retribution.

• Become a werewolf. Tonight is a full moon and becoming a shape-shifting servant of satan isn’t as far-fetched as you might think. Submit to the malevolent entropy of your deepest fears by sipping rainwater from the muddied footprint of any Canis lupus (read: wolf) that may be wandering around campus.

So monster-mash your butts on down to Johnnie Brock’s Dungeon (St. Louis’s premier shop for all things spooky), shake out those cobwebs (or don’t), and join me in conjuring the true spirit of October; our un-dead souls and already-withering mental health may depend on it.