Jessai Flores
The time has come, folks. Be afraid: Halloween szn is upon us. Of course, for the obsessive and vain — me— all Hallow’s Eve began around mid-September, when I started scheduling the three polyester nightmares I will sport this week. People say Valentine’s Day is a capitalist farce, but I think the real scam is Halloween. DIY costumes are for people with ambition and hand-eye coordination, of which I am zero for two.
Ethical production was made for people with time on their hands, and even though I’ve been planning this fit since Labor Day, I’m buying it frantically on Oct. 27. Morality is a privilege I don’t have if I want this tutu by tomorrow.
Instead, I metamorphosize into a fast-fashion groupie to be rivaled only by those girls on TikTok touting 74 new SHEIN outfits a week. For all the haters who have ever laughed at the capitalist monstrosity that is my Amazon Prime-brand credit card: don’t come crawling to me when I get points back for the annual pair of fairy wings I have express-shipped only for them to come, bent and smelling weird, on Nov. 2.
Regardless, I will inevitably spend an inordinate amount of money on plastic crowns and rayon capes, neither of which are known for their ability to keep one toasty on a 40-degree New Haven fall night. By the time this article comes out, I will have already sacrificed my dignity, my savings and the feeling in my fingers and ears running around York Street as a sloppy facsimile of The Ellen Show’s Sophia Grace — who, by the way, is now a grown woman, 21 weeks pregnant. It’s creepy.
The funniest thing about Halloween to me is that this is the one week a year when everyone is allowed to LARP, and everyone I’ve ever known has taken advantage of the opportunity. If Yale has a furry club, I hope they know that the pickings will be plentiful this weekend: the whole — skanky — animal kingdom emerges from hibernation and heads to High Street. If I were them, I’d set up an info tent.
But Miranda, you say, I’m promiscuous and pretentious! Also, my roommate claimed our shared cat ears and our one bustier that doesn’t smell like Costco vodka. Whatever am I to do?
Fear not, young Jedi. I’ve got three words for you: Slutty. Historical. Figure. I’m not talking Cleopatra or Trump — dig deeper. Think harder. I was this close to being a miniskirted Medea this year. It’s a foolproof way to have all eyes on you and remind a captive audience that you got a 5 on your AP Euro Exam. If you’ve ever wished you could be the most condescending patron at Sig Nu — and who among us hasn’t! — this is your prime time, babe.
If you do STEM, maybe go as a sexy Fibonacci sequence, or like, a ribosome; I am not the gal to ask.
Finding your costume is boot camp — the real battle comes when Halloweekend begins. Forget your midterms, you’ve got to get plastered in the exact same manner you usually do — but with sparkles on your face this time. Forget “living in the moment” — that’s for plebeians. If you don’t add to the tsunami of near-identical Instagram posts that you’ll be progressively more annoyed to look at as the week goes on, you’ll be scarlet-lettered.
Nikola Tesla once said, “Anti-social behavior is a trait of intelligence in a world full of conformists.” I’d like to see Tesla when the Be Real notification goes off on Oct. 29. Dick.
But I digress: “fun” is an illusion made up by Big Spirit Halloween. I literally cannot remember a single location I ended up at last Halloweekend, and I consider it a divine gift. All I know is that I ended up Yale ID-less, rain-soaked and crying. And this year, I’m gearing up to do it all over again.
Godspeed, soldiers. This is not a holiday for the faint of heart or the easily frostbitten. Lace up your bootstraps, and for the love of god, don’t eat any candy you find in the Luther backyard.