Chicago Shady Dealer

Opinion: Call Me a Millennial Again, and I Will Summon the Pumpkin Lord

By Jacob Johnson
Oct. 17, 2017

As a twenty-year-old living in this country, I am so fed up with being labeled as a “millennial.””. The term has grown to encapsulate everyone in my generation, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if there weren’t so many negative stigmas surrounding it. We’re seen as lazy (even though we work harder than any generation before us), entitled (even though we’ve learned to survive in one of the worst periods for economic opportunity in American history), and obsessed with avocados (okay, maybe that’s fair). Nonetheless, I am sick of the generations before us, who, by the way, are entirely responsible for putting us in such a hopeless position in the first place, constantly ragging on us for our lack of a work ethic. That’s why I’ve decided that if someone calls me a millennial one more time, I will summon the Pumpkin Lord, and they will feel the spice of his wrath.

Growing up, we all learned about the Pumpkin Lord (how he draws his strength from coffee beans, how he must only be summoned in a time of great crisis, etc). But what does the Pumpkin Prophecy that we all had to memorize in school really say about when he should appear? “In times of strife when help ye seek, when life seems a broken snapchat streak, when poor achievement seems bad luck, take thine Timbs and Starbucks cup. Place them on the Autumn ground. Clap thine hands, and dance around. Call out his name. Call it thrice! Your enemies will feel his spice. The way I interpret the Prophecy, we should have summoned the Pumpkin Lord a long time ago. “When poor achievement seems bad luck”? I know for a fact that none of the problems in my life came about throughfrom any fault of my own. Our generation knows all too well what this means. There’s no use in pretending we don’t understand the Pumpkin Prophecy any longer. It’s time.

So wWhen I come home for Thanksgiving break and I’m forced to speak to some elderly, opinionated relatives, or if I’m walking on campus and find myself face-to-face with a Fox News guy with a microphone who’s eager to spin some bullshit story to a captive Boomer audience about how “millennials are ruining this country” by asking me why I don’t get a summer job to pay for my tuition by getting a summer job, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to take off my Timbs, and I’m going to let my latte fall to the ground like a yellow leaf. I will clap my hands and dance frenetically in a circle around them, my voice rising in intensity as I cry out, “Pumpkin Lord! Pumpkin Lord! PUMPKIN LORD!!”