Seasonal creep is the irritating guilty pleasure we hate to love. In nature, it’s what happens when the usual timing of the seasons gets shoved around: flowers bloom early, animals migrate late and weather loses its damn mind. In retail, it’s what happens when every store in America decides summer is an appropriate time to blast us with fall for profit.

In this case, we’re talking about the annual pumpkin-spice invasion: That glorious combination of warming spices hijacked by corporate America and marched into every overprocessed product imaginable before summer has even packed up its flip-flops. Seasonal creep, creeping up on us like a sinister orange shadow, sponsored by shameless pumpkin-spice nutters.

Starbucks kicked this shit off 23 years ago with the Pumpkin Spice Latte, a sugar-bomb concoction that has local yokels descending on the counter like torch-wielding villagers storming Frankenstein’s castle the second it hits the menu. And when does this orange menace usually arrive? August.

Since when is August fall? August is still sweating through its underwear, grilling hot dogs and trying to remember where it left its sunglasses.

Thank you, Starbucks, for cracking open the portal. Now we’re all trapped in a pumpkin-spice vortex with no visible emergency exit. The PSL debuted in 2003 and helped launch the modern pumpkin-spice-everything industrial complex. To all the corporate tag-alongs: Get your own damn idea, please.

(Notice I started with thank you and ended with please. Manners matter.)

Take Dude Products and its Pumpkin Spice Dude Wipes, proudly tagged: “Become a DUMPkin Spice Legend.” No. Absolutely the fuck not.

First, the smell is anything but pumpkin spice. The chemical waft could make a rotting corpse gag. Second, it misses the whole damn point. Pumpkin spice is beloved because of its aroma: cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, ginger; warm, sweet, nostalgic little cuties that smell like somebody’s PJ-wearing grandma has a batch of pumpkin cookies in the oven.

It is not supposed to smell like a Glade PlugIn died in a truck-stop bathroom. PU to hell and back.

In my search for more DUMPkin spice atrocities, I discovered the Pumpkin Spice Cartel has infiltrated every aisle, shelf and unsuspecting household product in America.

There’s Dawn Pumpkin Spice Dish Spray, because apparently your dirty plates need to smell like a Hirons candle. Old Spice Pumpkin Spice Men’s Deodorant, because nothing screams rugged masculinity like hairy, allspice-enriched BO. Mmmm… yummy. And Pumpkin Spice Spam, which feels less like food and more like a dare from Satan’s test kitchen.

Then we have the infamous Mobil Pumpkin Spice Motor Oil. Before anyone gets too excited about their engine smelling like a cinnamon broom, it’s only a marketing gimmick. Not scented. No actual pumpkin spice. Just another corporate operative dangling seasonal insanity in front of us for dollars.

And the list keeps growing: Purina Fall Frolic Cat Litter, Pumpkin Spice Cheerios, Pumpkin Spice Mini-Wheats, LesserEvil Pumpkin Spice Popcorn, Pumpkin Spice KIND Bars, Pumpkin Spice Kraft Mac & Cheese, Creepy Crisps Potato Chips, pumpkin spice Gouda (no!), pumpkin spice scratch ’n sniff cards, soap, lotion, shampoo, lip balm, bath bombs. Pumpkin spice everything.

At this point, pumpkin spice is no longer a flavor. It’s a hostile corporate takeover, and they won’t rest until every product in America smells like boiling-over potpourri. All to disguise the stench of capitalism dry-humping a nubbin of nutmeg.

So, you might be asking, “How the hell is this a food review?” Well, it’s the antithesis of a food review, my Halloween-loving goblins. This is me begging you not to buy the pumpkin-spice crap that has nothing to do with celebrating our glorious fall spices and everything to do with mocking our ability to tell cinnamon from Idiocracy.

And while we’re on the subject of pumpkin spice, avoid the combo-platter jar of prefab pumpkin spice. Those spices lose their gusto sitting around commingling with their kissing cousins. Get yourself over to our very own Mountain Rose Herbs and buy and keep the spices separately for your own punkin’ blend. Want to make your own mix-to-order for pie, muffins, or whatever the Nutty Professor is concocting in your kitchen? 

This recipe tops anything you’ll ever get premixed off the shelf and makes enough for a double batch:

I’m not telling you to abandon her royal brown-spice highness. I’m telling you to wait until Halloween is close enough to smell the crisp evergreen air in Eugene. Carve a damn pumpkin. Put on Vince Guaraldi’s “The Great Pumpkin Waltz.” Then bake a batch of my wildly popular (read: sells-out) Pumpkin Cookies with Browned Butter Icing, which you can find online at EugeneWeekly.com.

This, my snaggle-toothed varmints, is how you welcome the delicious spicy bitch herself, the fragrant, brown-sugar royalty she is. All hail the Pumpkin Spice Queen! Now go make her proud by baking up a batch of these exclusive baddies, then eat one and remember why pumpkin spice was damn wonderful before dollars and nonsense moved in.

Find The Salty Chef in the Weekly every month. The identity is under wraps so restaurants have the best chance of serving an honest meal instead of putting on a show. The Salty Chef has a lifetime of experience in professional kitchens across multiple states, is a native Oregonian, and someone with a healthy appetite for great food, sassy opinions and calling it like they taste it.