Halloween: Just a Few Simple Rules

With only seven more sleeps until Halloween, it’s time to refresh the page and review.  Some of us (and I won’t mention any names – yet) have forgotten the true spirit (pun intended) of Halloween and need to get back on track.  So let’s just take a few minutes to revisit some of the simple rules of Halloween so that we can all have a super fun and safe evening.

First of all, Halloween is scary, not gory.  Severed limbs, guts and running sores are for the F/X department of B-grade movies.  Leave them there!  Halloween costumes are supposed to frighten you, not make you vomit.

Ladies, a one-piece French-cut bathing suit is not a costume.  I don’t care what colour it is or what kind of a tail you put on it.  Nor do furry-eared hair bands, a black nose and magic marker whiskers turn you into a cat, dog, bunny, wolverine or dingo.   And that goes double for those little red rayon devil horns.

If Mother Nature and Quarter Pounders™ have made you the Fat Elvis, do not dress up as the skinny Elvis.  That just looks sorry.  Go for the sequins — not the leather.  Otherwise, you just come off as a hyper-extended football.

Couples!  The Nut ‘n’ Bolt or Plug ‘n’ Socket costumes are totally overdone — unless you’re gay.  Then you’re just providing way too much information.

Do not, under any circumstances, put a costume on your dog or cat.  That is just mean.  They don’t know it’s Halloween, and they trust you.  Don’t make them look stupid.  (Where the hell is PETA when you need them?)

If you have to explain your costume more than twice, you either have simple friends or you don’t know what you’re doing.  For example, wearing a white sheet covered with old cans, papers, bones and debris (White Trash) is perfectly acceptable.  However, wearing a tuxedo with a rope around your neck (Well Hung) is not.

Costume cross dressing is fine as long as you’re not already a transvestite.  If you are, that’s cheating.

I don’t care what Anne Rice and what’s-her-name from Twilight say, vampires are not cozy.  Nobody’s going to cuddle up with a vampire and watch Dancing with the Stars.  If you do, you deserve everything you get.  Therefore, if you’re going to do vampires this Halloween put some heft into it: look the part, and a little Euro-trash accent wouldn’t hurt.

Charlie Sheen is not a costume; it’s a disease.

Always remember there is a noticeable gap between sexy and smutty.  If the button-down chick from Accounting comes to the party as Scheherazade — that’s sexy.  If Roger from sales comes as a Genie with a magic lamp glued to his crotch, that’s just smut.

Speaking of sexy, Little Bo Peep, Little Red Riding Hood and Little Miss Muffet are not sluts – they’re storybook characters.  The operative word here is “little.”  You’ve got 364 other nights of the year to play dress-up in the privacy of your own home.  There’s nothing wrong with risque on Halloween, but there are plenty of grownup women to choose from, like Pocahontas, Maid Marion or the chick from Star Wars.

Building is better than buying.  Part of the buzz of Halloween is putting together a costume.  Any fool with a credit card can be Snow White or the Wicked Witch, but it takes a real imagination to go as the Apple.

Priests, nuns and Popes do not have décolletage.  If you’re going to make fun of somebody’s religion, pick on the Moslems: they bite back.

If kids still come to your door on Halloween, it is never acceptable to give out lame treats.  I don’t care how committed you are to a better society; on one night a year you can lighten up, for God’s sake!  For example, do not give out toothbrushes, dental floss or mouthwash.  Organic Free Range oatcakes are okay — if you just shut up about it.  Money’s alright too, but remember these kids probably have a better pension plan than you do.

Finally, Halloween is not carte blanche to be a jerk.  Scaring the bejesus out of your adult friends is one thing, but pulling that crap on little kids isn’t very nice.  Besides, Dad might be waiting at the sidewalk.

So — if we all follow these few simple guidelines, we can all have a ghoulish good time.

Happy Halloween, everybody!

Wednesday: “Jack the Ripper: The Face of Evil”