The Phenomenon: Costumes — sexy vs. funny

So, Halloween. Yeah, I know it’s early, but let me tell you something sister: Halloween ain’t no show-up-to-your parents’-house-drunk-and-there’s-turkey-on-the-table kind of holiday. Having a good time on Halloween takes preparation. It’s time to start coming up with those costumes. Last year I made the mistake of waiting until the last minute because I was too cool to plan ahead, and then I panicked and just wore weird sunglasses. I didn’t even have the wherewithal to come up with a clever explanation of what I was supposed to be. I spent the evening hiding in a corner watching a troupe of “sexy ninjas” play beer pong with a dude in a butt-less bunny costume. Those are not the memories anybody wants to have.

Learn from my mistakes. Now is the time to line up the two essential elements for a good Halloween: a costume and a party. Party-wise, you could go to the parade, only it’ll make you want to kill yourself. I know I’m supposed to recommend a bar, but bars are a bad idea because all the people there without costumes on will make you feel like a dipshit. Just ask around and find a friend having an actual party, because then you can make the non-costumed people feel like dipshits.

For costumes, you’ve basically got two options: “funny” and “sexy.” I put the funny and sexy in quotation marks because usually costumes are neither actually funny nor actually sexy, but somehow they’re meant to evoke funny and/or sexiness. “Funny” costumes include dressing up as a topical politician (a Freddy Ferrer mask, for example), dressing up as something topical and completely tasteless (I’m a Katrina victim! Ha ha!), or transforming yourself into a visual pun (I’m a serial killer, get it? See, I stapled these little boxes of cereal with little knives in them to my pajamas). For “sexy,” just think up any noun, put the word sexy in front of it, and wear a revealing outfit that vaguely resembles your noun. Some examples include: sexy cat, sexy Freddy Ferrer, sexy hobo, or sexy Alien and Sedition Act of 1798. So get those brains working, kids, and get your Halloween planned, or mark my words, you’ll end up drinking whisky alone, boozily chucking Snickers minis at the neighborhood children. Which, yes, is probably bad.