Because cats love tutus. Duh.

Because cats love tutus. Duh.

In part one of a two part series (suspense!) Bwogger Claire Friedman discusses the benefits of having a really bad Halloween costume. Lazy is not a negative, people. It’s an art.

I’ve never been one to go all-out on Halloween. Even when I was in elementary school, I was Pippi Longstocking for three years straight. Hell, I would probably still be Pippi if the costume fit. After all, if something’s working for you, why mess with it? To this day, I keep up my grand tradition of costume mediocrity: last year I was a cat without ears or a tail (or, alternatively, a ninja with whiskers) and this year I briefly considered just wearing Groucho Marx glasses.

Granted, I’m almost positive that most of my Halloween laziness comes from geographic necessity. When it snows almost every year on Halloween, you learn two things: 1) whatever hard work you put into your costume can be decimated by Mother Nature in about three seconds and 2) “Arctic explorer” is always the best costume. Always. But, even if you’re not tromping through blizzards in pursuit of a Snickers bar, the same principles hold. Just replace snow with beer/ sweat, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for a Columbia Halloween! Why waste your time slaving over a costume that’s probably not even going to make it through the night? And dammit, why aren’t more people Arctic Explorers for Halloween?

“Ooooo,” you might be saying right now. “But making a costume is so much fun and then I get to post adorable pictures of me and my friends dressed like Disney princesses Top Gun Playboy bunnies the characters from Clue on Facebook!” But let’s be real: making a costume is fun for all of five minutes. Then you realize that you’re not artsy enough or rich enough to produce anything that looks half-decent. So you turn to Ricky’s, which might exist for the sole purpose of swindling people who waited too long to figure out a Halloween costume. Also, they have great hair products. And as for your Facebook persona? Here’s where the real magic of the lazy Halloween costume comes into play – because you’re only vaguely in costume, you can wear whatever you want! That shirt that you think you look great in? Wear it! Add a mask and voila! You’re Zorro.

A lazy Halloween costume, in addition to being really easy to put together, also allows for an insane amount of versatility. As a tailless, earless cat, you can go out and have a blast, or stay in and eat candy because you’re basically just in normal clothes. By dressing up only to the vaguest degree, you allow yourself to roll with the Halloween punches – going downtown? Perfect! Going to hang out in your lounge all night? Also perfect! Going to hold your friend’s hair while they vomit? That’s okay, you didn’t work hard on your costume anyway! The lazy Halloween costume prepares you for virtually any scenario!

So, with these words in mind, get out there and have yourself a very shoddily-put-together Halloween! You’ll thank yourself later.

For your lazy Halloween purposes, I’ve included a list of lazy awesome costumes:

  • Hold a picture frame and say you’re a painting (bonus: if/ when you inevitable ditch your frame, you can be someone who escaped from a painting)
  • Wear glasses and be Harry Potter. A scar is really not necessary.
  • Wear anything with sequins and say you’re a disco ball.
  • If you have any sort of animal ears, you can be a mouse…duh.
  • OBVIOUSLY: wear a snow suit and be an arctic explorer

 Your younger sister via ShutterStock