22 September—Just in case you haven’t been keeping up with current events, fall officially arrives today at 3:21 p.m. EDT. It’s the autumnal equinox—meaning equal night—so it’s anybody’s guess where the middle of the afternoon comes into the equation.

And, of course, with more than a month till Halloween, decorations for that purely mercantile holiday have already been appearing on area houses.

Now, the nice folks at Hammacher Schlemmer, knowing that lots of people don’t in fact keep up with current events, are selling what they call “The Simple Fall Alert Pager.” They were selling it, at any rate, but evidently it sold so well that it’s no longer listed on their website.

It’s a wonderful gadget, like everything Hammacher Schlemmer sells. Even the useless stuff. Even though their products are by no means inexpensive, they’re great to do business with, particularly with their no-questions-asked lifetime-warranty return policy. I’ve returned a couple of items after several years for full refunds. No questions were asked.

My only problem with Hammacher Schlemmer is that their copywriters don’t know how to use hyphens. To be exact, they seem not to know that hyphens even exist. And the clever grammatical expedient of adding the definite article to all its offerings makes them sound more impressive than they may be. But why quibble? Especially since their phone bank is actually in the United States.

Getting back to The Simple Fall Alert Pager, I truly regret that I missed the opportunity to buy one because it would have been extremely au courant, to say the least, to be paged at the very moment fall arrived. But, having hesitated and lost, I guess I’ll just have to guess . . .