A Very Spiral Reverie Halloween

Yes, it's getting to be that time of the year again. As the fall and winter holidays roll around, so too do my ridiculous blog posts on the subject. It's kind of a tradition for you to look forward to each and every year. (Especially the several hundred thousand of you who aren't read this yet. Someday you will, someday. And you'll feel on top of the world for it, knowing I recognized you years prior and made a point of addressing you directly from the past. See how important my readers are to me?)

As usual, you can expect an absurd original comedy blog story for Halloween later this week. (Specifically on Halloween itself.) But first! I thought I'd give you guys a double-decker holiday update this year with the important cultural insight I'm known for providing you on a regular basis. (They don't call me Mr. Information for nothing.)

What cultural insight shall I provide this year? Some suggestions for low budget to no-budget last minute costumes that everyone can enjoy! And also some suggestions on new twists on classic dumb traditions to make the holiday edgy and cool again! (Assuming that, to you, edgy and cool entails entirely unnecessary and tragic violence.)

Adult Costumes

OH NO! After blacking out one time too many, it's only five minutes until the big office Halloween party! OH NO! How can you possibly find a costume in time!? OH NO! Don't worry, I'm here to help you! OH NO! Stop saying that. OH NO! Fine, have it your way. Look, just follow my advice and you'll be the hit of every party on the planet - all at once. OH NO! I give up. You're dead to me.

- Secret Murderer - For a change, why not try the charming sociopath waiting to murder everybody the instant they turn their backs? We all know half of you secretly fantasize about this anyway and all you need is an icepick, some kind of life, or maybe a stapler if you really feel the need to sink that low. (Stapling deaths HURT. And also take a long time to finish.)

- Someone Who Keeps Forgetting It's Halloween - The yuk-yuks will never stop when you keep asking your coworkers what's going on and react in complete confusion to the strange revelry all around you! What do you mean it's Halloween?! It was just August! This shouldn't be too hard to pull off considering all those quaaludes you've been doing lately. That's why you blacked out earlier. You've got a real problem, you know. Maybe you should consider seeing that office counselor? Maybe just a little? Okay, geez, I'll back off. You can't say I didn't try. My only crime here is caring too much.

- Too Cool For This Holiday - Impress your coworkers by leaning against walls and standing in corners with your arms crossed at all times while casually remarking to anybody unfortunate enough to get within earshot about how you're so over Halloween, because it's some kinda baby holiday for sugar addicts. Personally, you can't wait for Thanksgiving to roll around so you can snort yourself some turk'. Butterball in the hizzouse. (Warning: If you repeat that last sentence to actual living human beings, you will probably get punched. Repeatedly.) Your coworkers will try to pretend that your cleverly disguising references to popular holiday cuisine isn't actually a thinly veiled cry for help. They all know you're a drug addict, but they'd rather not deal with it. It'd be easier just to fire you, frankly.

Or, if you want to get even more creative...

- Traumatized Veteran - You've just returned from one of any number of American wars: Korea, Vietnam, World War II, Iraq, Afghanistan, or if you're feeling creative, one of any number of potential future wars! (Remember, we're all traitors unless we blindly support the glorious military-industrial complex.) Make up your own back story - maybe you participated in the bombing of Dresden, or maybe you were ordered to murder half a Vietnamese farming village's children! Or maybe you drove around in a desert town taunting thirsty children with candy and water you had no intention of giving them before an insurgent blew up your armored vehicle! The possibilities are virtually endless, and as such, so too are the possibilities of how you can take out your deep-seated trauma on all your friends and loved ones! No one will ever look at you the same way again after you don this costume - secondhand uniforms aren't hard to find on the cheap, either! - and everyone loves an American hero. Especially the ones who come home realizing that our military propaganda's blatantly misleading the American people on what it means to go to war each and every day of every year, and how brainwashed most of the American people have become to this notion. Bonus points if you can get a wheelchair or pull off the appearance of some kind of amputation. (Even more Bonus points for Born on the Fourth of July references in the things you scream at people. It's not hard to be taken more seriously than Tom Cruise.)

- Human Colostomy Bag - People are often full of things. Now you can be too, as the sexiest colostomy bag at the office party! Astonish your friends and coworkers! Will you be covered in excrement by the end of the night? We hope not, the costume - constructed entirely out of plastic bags and saran wrap - doesn't function like the real thing!

Kids' Costumes

So, adult readers of this adult blog written for adults by an adult (technically) - I know what you're thinking now. "Thanks for all the great costume ideas, Mr. Super-Genius! But what about my kids? How can I bring your greatness to them!?" First of all, I don't like kids. They're noisy and annoying and think they know more than they do. (Hey, that sounds an awful lot like many adults, come to think of it.) Secondly, we've already established that you have a real problem with substance abuse. Did you really have to drag a child into your living nightmare? Regardless, I'm a cool guy and I like the cut of your jib, so I've got a few suggestions for you here. They might not be as awesome, but let's face it - it's hard to make anything awesome family-safe enough for kids in today's America. If only you'd had crude, surreal '80s and early '90s cartoons to warp your children like they did me.

- Conscientious Objector - Hey kids! Now you too can glower at that one kid who always dresses like a soldier and whose father wants him to join the marines when he grows up. That kid's so proud, but it's the things daddy saw in the war that make daddy so angry and make mommy sometimes cry all night! At least your parent in question has their demons under control, even if they're sometimes gone all night and seem really twitchy at breakfast the next morning. That just means they love you twice as much as other parents! Aren't you special?

- Spider-Paper-Bag Man - Can't afford a real Spider-Man costume? That's okay! All you need is a regular grocery bag and the ability to draw something that looks vaguely like a circle! Kids are dumb. They won't complain when you insist that sticking a brown paper bag over their head is more than enough for a Halloween costume. It doesn't matter that you have no artistic talent and don't have any idea what Spider-Man looks like. Who cares? You're too busy shooting up in the bathroom. That is important business right there. And in fact, they may even thank you later when they return home with twice the haul the other kids got thanks to their extra-pitiable costume! What is Halloween about, after all, if not some combination of pity and loathing? (This costume may also result in a visit from child services. You've been warned.) Take heed: you're asking for trouble if you don't make sure the kid isn't in the costume when you try to cut out eyeholes. (The child services visit is pretty much guaranteed there. They might find out about your addictions! That's the worst thing that could possibly happen! How's daddy/mommy supposed to live without his/her 'medicine'!?)

- Foster Child - Like the first suggestion, this one doesn't need any actual costume! The kid's costume is their attitude! And like the first costume, sharing sob stories about how daddy or mommy used to shoot smack into their eyeball before kissing you goodnight is a guaranteed pay to awesome bonus candy! There's no candy sweeter than candy given out of cautious concern for a child who may have nothing else that could ever possibly bring them happiness! (And like all other sources of happiness in life - tangible or intangible - someday the candy's going to run out too. And then what are you going to do?)

Traditions

Traditions are lame, right? Of course they are. They're old. All old things are terrible. That's why you throw them into the nearest dump. It's something all of humanity does all the time. Even with our fellow human beings. (Unless they're in politics - then they get to ruin discourse and hold the whole country back from making meaningful progress.) Now that we've established that old things are terrible, it's out with the old and in with the new!

Considering putting together a haunted house this year, are we? Maybe? Sure, you could take the route with extra Jesus where you give out toothbrushes and tell children of all ethnicities that they're going to burn in eternal hellfire if they don't pray at the altar of old Crucifixiony McPartyDrag, maybe throw some references in to how much you hate and fear Islam because the talking people on the TV-box told you to. But those are the worst kinds of haunted houses conceivable. Why not do something crazy and new? For instance, you could construct a Rube Goldberg murder machine and put on a display more enthralling than those old TV commercials for that Mousetrap board game! The local children will watch with eyes wide as the crazy contraption completes its motions and randomly shoots one of them at the end! (Note: If nobody is successfully shot, you'll have to restart the machine until it all works out.) Now kids can get valuable life lessons and delicious candy in the same night! Some dreams do come true.

To finish things up, you're naturally looking for new ways to spice up your yearly candy distribution methods, aren't you? Yes, you are. It's written all over your face in lutefisk-scented magic marker.

Why not totally shake things up and send ripples through the neighborhood by very carefully placing small razor blades into your candy or tainting them with rat poison? Both these things are very difficult to pull off without being obvious and all the more rewarding for success! As you're undoubtedly well aware - at least here in America - there's been paranoia about just these two things happening for decades now. But! In your favor, it's all just a manufactured media panic. no one really does this! They won't expect it and no one will know it was you!

(Note: The writer in no way endorses child murder - or murder in general, for that matter - no matter how funny it might be. I wish that this disclaimer weren't necessary, but this is the internet.)