Chuckle #380 | October 29th, 2009
Halloween Update: Sexy Barmaids are out, Philosophers are in, Lobster Claws are ill-Advised, and the Shadow World Rules.
I thought my KIDS had a hard time planning their Halloween costumes but as it turns out, there’s even more peer pressure on us parents. To make the grade, the perfect adult costume needs to be three things:
1) Clever
2) Comfortable
3) Sexy
If you hit all three, you’ve won the costume “trifecta”, the Platonic “ideal”. Sure, you can take the easy way out and do the witch, hobo, or Dracula thing but what does that prove to the world? That you know how to get to Party City? Forget about it. NO “trifecta” costume can be had at a party store. A truly clever costume can only be crafted at home, after prodigious mental effort, a trip to Goodwill, and liberal use of a glue gun.
I appreciate CLEVER costumes. Like a fine wine, they take a lot of effort to make. The use of word plays or puns, current events, allegories, innuendo, and/or literary allusions can all prove your intellectual agility. (If you can achieve clever and STILL dress up as a sexy barmaid, kudos, you’re good.) One year I put a flashlight inside an empty paper towel tube, and strapped it to my head. I took great glee in telling people I was “the light at the end of the tunnel”. NOT sexy, but very comfortable. And it WAS clever, at least until the batteries ran out. Then I looked more like “crazy recycling girl”.
Take pride in your cleverness, but DON’T underestimate the importance of COMFORT. It’s a problem if your costume prohibits you from holding a beer and eating the pigs in a blanket, (or sitting on the toilet.) Do NOT let “pride cometh” before a cold one. My worst costume ever was when my husband and I attended a very crowded party as two lobsters stuck in a heinously large trap. We spent WEEKS constructing this coup de resistance, only to find our selves stuck together in a corner, unable to move or hold drinks with our not-so-clever “claw” hands.
SEXY. A lot of women like to go sexy with their costumes. It seems to fulfill a bad girl fantasy that MOST of us only indulge in on Halloween. And frankly, if you can pull it off, go for it! If I had “the goods” I probably wouldn’t be so obsessed with “clever.” Men seem to avoid “sexy” costumes. Which is good, because I don’t really want to see any husband I know (other than my own) in a leather thong or a toga.
Only ONCE have I managed to produce a perfect trifecta Halloween costume. My husband and I went to a party as a “Freudian Slip”. Me in a “slip” and him as Freud. (Reversing the roles would have added a comic element, but my husband wasn’t willing to go there, and the slip couldn’t.) So I got CLEVER, COMFORTABLE, AND SEXY all in one concept. Except for being a little cold, it was the “IDEAL” costume. Forgive the philosophizing, but Plato would have been proud.
Dressing up for Halloween this year? What’s your priority, Clever, Comfortable or Sexy?
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