Halloween Costume Picks 2008 - Best of the Best
I totally fooled you, this is another entry about hot dog vendors.
My fiancé and I recently took a little trip to the Spirit Halloween store. You've probably seen them; they spring up sometime in late September or early October, filling empty buildings and storefronts that are seemingly abandoned the other eleven months out of the year. It seems odd that they occupy the same vacancies year after year; do they rent these places out, paying for twelve months when they only use them for one? That seems highly impractical. Are these locations unprofitable? The Spirit store I went to has been in the same place for at least three years, sandwiched between a Best Buy and a Staples inside a bustling outdoors mini-mall. I find it hard to believe a franchise couldn't turn a profit in such a location. There seems to be only one plausible answer to this puzzle:
They're haunted.
Duh! Obviously, sometime in the nebulous past, something horrible happened within the four walls of these commercial spaces. Perhaps an inexperienced forklift operator was crushed by a Laz-E-Boy sleeper sofa. Maybe there was a terrible blender accident at a Bed, Bath and Beyoooooooond (say that in a spooky voice). Shit, maybe some asshole at an AT&T store got cancer from all the cell phones, what the fuck do I know? Well, what I do know is that these shells of commercialism are chock-full of restless ghosts, and the Spirit stores are irresistibly attracted to them. They can't help it. They are Halloween stores!
Mystery solved.
But that really is not the point, here. The point is that I will never be able to unsee the horrors that I saw at the Spirit store that day - namely, the costumes. Oh sure, there's the vanilla horror, like seeing an entire High School Musical section, or the "sexy nurse" costume - now in plus size! Just what the world needs. No, no, we are digging deeper, to the bottom of the barrel, where we find:
The novelty costumes.
If I had known what rank horrors awaited me when I left my house that afternoon, I would have brought my camera. Alas, I did not, and I am too lazy to go back to the store, so you get stock photos from Spirit's website. Rest assured, there were actually worse costumes in the physical store, for example:
-Toilet (available in both children's and adult sizes)
-Fart-O-Meter (for the kids)
-Breathalyzer (for the adults, if you can call them that at this point)
-Hung Like a Horse (free horse for hanging off your crotch included!)
-A giant cock. Just...a giant cock.
Well then, these should be a cakewalk. Let's start with the kids!
"Tighty Whitey"
When Halloween time comes 'round, some kids want to dress up like their heroes. Whether it be a firefighter, policeman, or even Batman or Superman, boys' eyes light up when they see the flimsy fabric and cheap plastic masks of these getups.
I can't tell if this kid is trying to emulate his hero, whoever that may be, or mock the idea of wiggers. You know, you could simply go out and buy a generic football jersey (although will you be able to score this season's fashionable off-the-shoulder kind?), an undershirt, some underwear and some baggy jeans. Does the fact that they have put all of these together into a one-piece costume mean that it was, in fact, intended to mock? Perhaps faux nature of the costume is meant to deceive mothers; while they would never let their child dress like this in street clothes, well, this is a costume, so it's okay, right? The manufacturer of this costume is pure genius.
I'm not exactly sure what gang sign this child, who is either Zachary Ty Brian's brother or the long-lost member of Hanson, is supposed to be depicting. Is he fanning his nipples? I wouldn't think they would be too overheated, considering the mesh "shirt" and the fact that it's getting downright chilly by the end of October. No, wait, I think I got it. He just accidentally shut his hand in his mom's car door on the way to trick-or-treating, and is waving it back and forth in pain. Gosh, that hurts.
I'm a little unsure about what's going on with his jawline, also. I'm thinking he just got done with a mud pie-eating contest, which explains both the dirt caking his chin and the fact that his cheeks are puffed out. Didn't anyone tell him the rules of competitive eating? You gotta swallow before you qualify as finished. Sorry kid, you lose.
"Plumbers Butt"
For the discriminating child who is just not satisfied with a sharp plastic face mask that will scratch his skin or a latex mask that will suffocate him and make him have an anxiety attack every time he smells the scent of a dentist's gloved hand, there is "Plumbers Butt". Why just make your face uncomfortable, when you can render your entire body immobile and irritating by spending two hours inflating a vinyl suit that will surely deflate in five minutes?
Despite the presence of the word "butt" specifically inserted into the name, there is no picture of the back of the costume. One is left to assume that there is a hilarious drawn-on line blossoming from the middle of the "pants", consistent with the design of the pigs-tail belly button. I have never seen a belly button like that, and I hope I never do.
The grammatical configuration of "Plumbers Butt" also injects some mystery into this costume. You could assume that they actually meant "Plumber's Butt". We never actually get to see the butt; however, we've already gone ahead and assumed there is a cartoonish butt crack on the back. But isn't the correct phrase called "plumber's crack"? I was going to ponder why they chose to change that, but then I realized that same person also doesn't know how to use apostrophes. Everything is up for grabs. If you take "Plumbers Butt" literally, it just makes no sense at all. First ever Dadaist Halloween costume.
This child looks pretty fucking happy, for being forced to wear one of the most embarrassing Halloween costumes of all time. Upon closer inspection, you can almost see the pained expression - the raised eyebrows, the forced, unnatural grin. One of two things has happened: either this kid voluntarily chose this costume, and when his dad asked what the fuck he was doing, he replied, "When I grow up, I want to be a gigantic fatty and open my own plumbing business, which I will then name after my two loves, being fat and working with raw sewage!" Or, his dad told him that this was the costume he'd be wearing this year, so he can experience the humiliation and depression that comes with being morbidly obese. "How does it feel, son? Not very good, huh? Well then, why don't you lay off the sugar, go outside once in a while, and stay in school." Little Tommy isn't getting any candy this year.
"In Goth We Trust"
Not the actual name of the costume. Not a costume at all, actually. Rather, a line of "clothing", the word used loosely here, trying to pass itself off as a valid Halloween costume. At the store I went to, they had several different goofy tops, bottoms, and accessories, all incredibly poorly crafted with cheap fabric and plastic skulls everywhere.
I'm assuming In Goth We Trust is trying to break into the Hot Topic market, but I don't understand their rationale. If you are going to be a goth for Halloween, you are probably already a goth the other 364 days out of the year, and therefore you have plenty of costume choices at home that are of a much higher quality. You know, times are tough; maybe In Goth We Trust is trying to appeal to the repression-affected goth market. "Sorry, Johnny, we can't afford Hot Topic, but how about In Goth We Trust? Look, it has silver plastic spikes on it and everything! It's just as good!" In Goth We Trust is the Tuffskin jeans of the goth market.
I'm not even going to comment on the kid, because he's going to want to blow his own brains out in ten years when he realizes this picture has been immortalized on the Internet, not to mention all the "dark" poems and YouTube videos he made during this period of his life. I feel sorry for this generation.
"Poo-Poo Platter"
I realize the picture is kind of small, but I saw the larger version myself in the store, and it's just as hard to make out what is going on here. Thank god there's a title to let us know - oh, this is a platter, with a tower of feces on top! And...chopsticks. I am a better person for knowing this.
Seriously though, what the fuck. I won't go too much into the type of person who would even consider paying money for, and then wearing, this abomination in public. I think we all know this type of person. He is either in a fraternity, which explains everything, or he is living alone in a small apartment littered with Taco Bell wrappers. He has at least one joke book in the magazine rack next to the urine-encrusted toilet. He is constantly making loud and inappropriate comments to his co-workers. I was going to add that he would force his son to wear the Fart-O-Meter costume, but he has either never had the opportunity to create offspring, or the ex has sole custody.
There's either nothing at all or far too much to say about the costume itself. It's overwhelming. First of all, feces would never sit like that. I mean, I don't want to get too into the details, since I am far classier than this costume, but if you took a dump on a plate, it would not look like that. And the ratio of platter size to fecal matter tower is all off. Look at how small that platter is. Comparatively, the FMT is like, fifty feet tall. And I realize that the chopsticks are there to somehow tie together a joke that is already on life support, but all they really do is just strike me with a jarring, discordant feeling. Of course, that could be from the entire costume, from title to concept to execution. I shouldn't blame the chopsticks. They don't deserve this cruel fate.
I like his stance and facial expression. "Hey ladies, check out my chopsticks." Yeah, that ain't happening, buddy.
Well, there you go. Just a small sampling of the quality Halloween costumes that Spirit expects you to pay actual, tangible dollars for. And I'm sure people have, too. In droves. Which is why, when Halloween night comes, I'm locking the doors, turning out the lights, and praying that I don't hear those three most dreaded words:
"Trick or treat!"
My fiancé and I recently took a little trip to the Spirit Halloween store. You've probably seen them; they spring up sometime in late September or early October, filling empty buildings and storefronts that are seemingly abandoned the other eleven months out of the year. It seems odd that they occupy the same vacancies year after year; do they rent these places out, paying for twelve months when they only use them for one? That seems highly impractical. Are these locations unprofitable? The Spirit store I went to has been in the same place for at least three years, sandwiched between a Best Buy and a Staples inside a bustling outdoors mini-mall. I find it hard to believe a franchise couldn't turn a profit in such a location. There seems to be only one plausible answer to this puzzle:
They're haunted.
Duh! Obviously, sometime in the nebulous past, something horrible happened within the four walls of these commercial spaces. Perhaps an inexperienced forklift operator was crushed by a Laz-E-Boy sleeper sofa. Maybe there was a terrible blender accident at a Bed, Bath and Beyoooooooond (say that in a spooky voice). Shit, maybe some asshole at an AT&T store got cancer from all the cell phones, what the fuck do I know? Well, what I do know is that these shells of commercialism are chock-full of restless ghosts, and the Spirit stores are irresistibly attracted to them. They can't help it. They are Halloween stores!
Mystery solved.
But that really is not the point, here. The point is that I will never be able to unsee the horrors that I saw at the Spirit store that day - namely, the costumes. Oh sure, there's the vanilla horror, like seeing an entire High School Musical section, or the "sexy nurse" costume - now in plus size! Just what the world needs. No, no, we are digging deeper, to the bottom of the barrel, where we find:
The novelty costumes.
If I had known what rank horrors awaited me when I left my house that afternoon, I would have brought my camera. Alas, I did not, and I am too lazy to go back to the store, so you get stock photos from Spirit's website. Rest assured, there were actually worse costumes in the physical store, for example:
-Toilet (available in both children's and adult sizes)
-Fart-O-Meter (for the kids)
-Breathalyzer (for the adults, if you can call them that at this point)
-Hung Like a Horse (free horse for hanging off your crotch included!)
-A giant cock. Just...a giant cock.
Well then, these should be a cakewalk. Let's start with the kids!
"Tighty Whitey"
When Halloween time comes 'round, some kids want to dress up like their heroes. Whether it be a firefighter, policeman, or even Batman or Superman, boys' eyes light up when they see the flimsy fabric and cheap plastic masks of these getups.
I can't tell if this kid is trying to emulate his hero, whoever that may be, or mock the idea of wiggers. You know, you could simply go out and buy a generic football jersey (although will you be able to score this season's fashionable off-the-shoulder kind?), an undershirt, some underwear and some baggy jeans. Does the fact that they have put all of these together into a one-piece costume mean that it was, in fact, intended to mock? Perhaps faux nature of the costume is meant to deceive mothers; while they would never let their child dress like this in street clothes, well, this is a costume, so it's okay, right? The manufacturer of this costume is pure genius.
I'm not exactly sure what gang sign this child, who is either Zachary Ty Brian's brother or the long-lost member of Hanson, is supposed to be depicting. Is he fanning his nipples? I wouldn't think they would be too overheated, considering the mesh "shirt" and the fact that it's getting downright chilly by the end of October. No, wait, I think I got it. He just accidentally shut his hand in his mom's car door on the way to trick-or-treating, and is waving it back and forth in pain. Gosh, that hurts.
I'm a little unsure about what's going on with his jawline, also. I'm thinking he just got done with a mud pie-eating contest, which explains both the dirt caking his chin and the fact that his cheeks are puffed out. Didn't anyone tell him the rules of competitive eating? You gotta swallow before you qualify as finished. Sorry kid, you lose.
"Plumbers Butt"
For the discriminating child who is just not satisfied with a sharp plastic face mask that will scratch his skin or a latex mask that will suffocate him and make him have an anxiety attack every time he smells the scent of a dentist's gloved hand, there is "Plumbers Butt". Why just make your face uncomfortable, when you can render your entire body immobile and irritating by spending two hours inflating a vinyl suit that will surely deflate in five minutes?
Despite the presence of the word "butt" specifically inserted into the name, there is no picture of the back of the costume. One is left to assume that there is a hilarious drawn-on line blossoming from the middle of the "pants", consistent with the design of the pigs-tail belly button. I have never seen a belly button like that, and I hope I never do.
The grammatical configuration of "Plumbers Butt" also injects some mystery into this costume. You could assume that they actually meant "Plumber's Butt". We never actually get to see the butt; however, we've already gone ahead and assumed there is a cartoonish butt crack on the back. But isn't the correct phrase called "plumber's crack"? I was going to ponder why they chose to change that, but then I realized that same person also doesn't know how to use apostrophes. Everything is up for grabs. If you take "Plumbers Butt" literally, it just makes no sense at all. First ever Dadaist Halloween costume.
This child looks pretty fucking happy, for being forced to wear one of the most embarrassing Halloween costumes of all time. Upon closer inspection, you can almost see the pained expression - the raised eyebrows, the forced, unnatural grin. One of two things has happened: either this kid voluntarily chose this costume, and when his dad asked what the fuck he was doing, he replied, "When I grow up, I want to be a gigantic fatty and open my own plumbing business, which I will then name after my two loves, being fat and working with raw sewage!" Or, his dad told him that this was the costume he'd be wearing this year, so he can experience the humiliation and depression that comes with being morbidly obese. "How does it feel, son? Not very good, huh? Well then, why don't you lay off the sugar, go outside once in a while, and stay in school." Little Tommy isn't getting any candy this year.
"In Goth We Trust"
Not the actual name of the costume. Not a costume at all, actually. Rather, a line of "clothing", the word used loosely here, trying to pass itself off as a valid Halloween costume. At the store I went to, they had several different goofy tops, bottoms, and accessories, all incredibly poorly crafted with cheap fabric and plastic skulls everywhere.
I'm assuming In Goth We Trust is trying to break into the Hot Topic market, but I don't understand their rationale. If you are going to be a goth for Halloween, you are probably already a goth the other 364 days out of the year, and therefore you have plenty of costume choices at home that are of a much higher quality. You know, times are tough; maybe In Goth We Trust is trying to appeal to the repression-affected goth market. "Sorry, Johnny, we can't afford Hot Topic, but how about In Goth We Trust? Look, it has silver plastic spikes on it and everything! It's just as good!" In Goth We Trust is the Tuffskin jeans of the goth market.
I'm not even going to comment on the kid, because he's going to want to blow his own brains out in ten years when he realizes this picture has been immortalized on the Internet, not to mention all the "dark" poems and YouTube videos he made during this period of his life. I feel sorry for this generation.
"Poo-Poo Platter"
I realize the picture is kind of small, but I saw the larger version myself in the store, and it's just as hard to make out what is going on here. Thank god there's a title to let us know - oh, this is a platter, with a tower of feces on top! And...chopsticks. I am a better person for knowing this.
Seriously though, what the fuck. I won't go too much into the type of person who would even consider paying money for, and then wearing, this abomination in public. I think we all know this type of person. He is either in a fraternity, which explains everything, or he is living alone in a small apartment littered with Taco Bell wrappers. He has at least one joke book in the magazine rack next to the urine-encrusted toilet. He is constantly making loud and inappropriate comments to his co-workers. I was going to add that he would force his son to wear the Fart-O-Meter costume, but he has either never had the opportunity to create offspring, or the ex has sole custody.
There's either nothing at all or far too much to say about the costume itself. It's overwhelming. First of all, feces would never sit like that. I mean, I don't want to get too into the details, since I am far classier than this costume, but if you took a dump on a plate, it would not look like that. And the ratio of platter size to fecal matter tower is all off. Look at how small that platter is. Comparatively, the FMT is like, fifty feet tall. And I realize that the chopsticks are there to somehow tie together a joke that is already on life support, but all they really do is just strike me with a jarring, discordant feeling. Of course, that could be from the entire costume, from title to concept to execution. I shouldn't blame the chopsticks. They don't deserve this cruel fate.
I like his stance and facial expression. "Hey ladies, check out my chopsticks." Yeah, that ain't happening, buddy.
Well, there you go. Just a small sampling of the quality Halloween costumes that Spirit expects you to pay actual, tangible dollars for. And I'm sure people have, too. In droves. Which is why, when Halloween night comes, I'm locking the doors, turning out the lights, and praying that I don't hear those three most dreaded words:
"Trick or treat!"