Halloween ’07: the night of the drunken bumblebee fight. No, there was no bitch-slapping and we didn’t end up making out. I just didn’t think she was qualified to tell me to shut up. On Halloween ’08, my friend – the Greek goddess – prevented me from macking on a freshman dressed as Santa Claus who probably had DC swipes. She then danced with Obama, resulting in brown body paint on her white dress. Only Halloween allows you to use sentences like that.
I don’t like being scared. I’m surprisingly unskilled at trespassing onto the property of strangers and asking for candy. I do enjoy, however, partaking in the slutification of an otherwise appropriate costume and then mooching from other people’s cheap plastic witch cauldrons, so I’m excited for Halloween. And alien vomit Jell-o shots.
Halloween gives everyone a chance to be someone else for a day, which is nice, because some things sound like they’d only be cool to be for a day. Like Superman. Being Superman sounds awesome, but then you have to factor in that he can only get laid when he loses his powers. So that’s a real tradeoff. Rogue from X-Men and the Hulk are similar in that they can’t get it on without doing some serious damage.
The biggest downfall of Halloween is being placed in the midst of a season of chilliness, illness, midtermness, and idleness. Before you throw on that skeleton suit and blonde wig and go around introducing yourself as Paris Hilton, here are some tips that might increase your chances of having a good night.
Make sure people can actually tell what you are.
Nothing sucks more than being asked repeatedly, “What are you supposed to be?”
However, if you know the questioner happens to be exceptionally fatuitous, reduce your level of indignation by the number of IQ points by which they are intellectually inferior to you. It’s called tolerance.
I had a science teacher in the seventh grade. To protect what dignity he may have, I’ll call him Mr. White. Everyone asked Mr. White why he wasn’t wearing a Halloween costume. It turned out he was. He had decided to dress as a nerd by tucking in his shirt and wearing glasses. The only problem was no one could tell the difference because he always looked like that. Don’t end up like this poor sad man.
Don’t be lazy.
Putting your hair in a messy sideways ponytail and wearing spandex is hardly discernable from what a lot of chicks wear everyday on campus. The same goes for wearing nothing but a pumpkin t-shirt or a witch hat. Come on, girl. Put your back into it.
Even if the economy has caused you to alternate between Hot Pockets and Top Ramen for survival, frugality does not have to result in a crappy costume, especially if you’re a creative soul. You can, however, even pull together a decent one if you detest creativity. For example, take any given outfit and put blood all over it. Instant dead prom queen/cheerleader/Cholo. Dead is the boy version of slutty.
Play nice with the other floozies.
Look, it’s inevitable that the generic, mass-produced-in-a-Vietnamese sweatshop outfit you overpaid for will probably be seen on someone else. The best thing you can do is hope you look better in it and proceed with your fun, joyful night.
If self-reassurance isn’t your cup of tea, going batshit crazy, seizing your baseball hoe friend’s (Player No. 69, of course) plastic bat, and streamlining across the party in a shrieking rage telling her to step off might convince her to leave the party. But be prepared to do this repeatedly throughout the night.
No other night but this coming Saturday can you have the Village People hold you up for a kegstand, walk to the celebration with Snow White and Dorothy Gale, then hit up a cozy romantic midnight snack with a sexy cop. Just make sure it’s not a real cop.
MICHELLE RICK honestly prefers creative costumes to skanky ones, so show her what you’ve got. She can be reached at marick@ucdavis.edu.
