No costume was finished, just the five-pound bag of fun-sized candy originally designated for trick-or-treaters. Twas the night before Halloween and your apathy, stinginess, and desire to remain pants-less had eliminated any costume ideas that involved leaving the apartment. Tonight laziness meant getting creative and weird.
Glancing at your tattered sweatpants and stained t-shirt, your imagination begins churning. This outfit alone, plus an unshaved face, customary four-dollar six-pack, and ambition-less sandals, and you’re already a doppelganger for a freshly divorced father (1). Or, top off said ensemble with a newspaper-stuffed jacket, maybe a spritz of gin and varnish, and you’re set to go out as a homeless man (2), after, of course, you add some pseudo track marks, a harmonica, and practice angrily mumbling for authenticity.
Trainspotting-esque drifter and sad dad are officially on the table. You see, though, that you could swap the disgusting sweat pants for threadbare jeans, the gin glaze for a tallboy, and the angry mumbling for equally-angry Kid Rock lyrics and go as an archetypal dirty white-trash garbage human (3). If you commit, though, you know you can’t break character. All day for Halloween you’re only subjects of conversation can be personal legal issues, high-school football reminiscing, and unfounded theories on which groups control the media.
Venturing over to rifle through your closet, you’re confident that what you lacked in planning you can more than make up for in acting. Inspiration is everywhere. The nasty, thrift store bathrobe could be tossed on, complemented with some couch hair, lint, and menthol cigarettes, and you’d be an incredibly comfortable cat lady (4).
Your jersey collection makes for solid professional athlete (5) costumes, especially when incorporated with publicized personal issues. A Metta World Peace jersey is bland until you integrate locker-room cognac and a Michael Jordan costume isn’t complete until you add the Hitler mustache, the sputtering NBA franchise, and the chronic gambling problem.
Near the back of the closet, you unearth a trove of never-worn ugly presents that didn’t come with receipts. Unwanted souvenir t-shirts, bulky hand-me-down jackets, hideous sweaters, now it all gets thrown on in a frantic fashion non-sequitur. The result is spot-on—you’re looking exactly like a cab driver (6). Immersing yourself into the character, you start omitting articles from speech, forgetting noun-verb agreement entirely, and dubbing yourself with a fictitious name that sounds almost completely vowel-free.
The accent, the feigned misunderstanding, the apparent knowledge of the metric system and soccer, it’s a tough act to keep up. It’ll all be worth it though, just to be able to constantly frustrate your friends, pizza delivery boys, and authentically foreign cab drivers throughout Halloween.
Suddenly sweaty and completely overwhelmed by choice, you step out of the bedroom shedding layers. There, you spot those disgusting, landlord-crafted 1970’s orange curtains. With a quick wrap, you’re instantly a cult member (7). Should skepticism set in about the Hare Krishna look, you can always opt for the iconic Kool-Aid-stained face of a Jonestown resident.
There are no bad options on the table, especially the option that involves skipping parties to stay at home and eat candy in the dark.