Rejected Halloween Costume Ideas

1. Abusive boyfriend -

• Carry around a restraining order. When people try to talk to you, ask for their name and then check to make sure they're not on your list.

• You can cycle through the various stages of abusive behavior throughout the night. Carry a bouquet of flowers and go into the "Honeymoon" stage: make promises about changing, going into therapy, never hitting the person you're talking to again, etc.

• When people come up and ask you what you're supposed to be dressed as, insult them! Ask them where they've been & whom they've been talking to, demand to look through their cell phone. Also, try to destroy their self-esteem.
  

• Get someone to go as your abused victim. They can have a black eye and tell everyone how their abuser is going to change and how clumsy they are for falling down the stairs, again!

• Carry around one of those "Cycles of Violence" info sheets. Tell people how your court ordered anger management therapist made you take one of these. Then angrily declare, "But I think it's bullshit!" and crumple up the paper.

Downfall: my girlfriend was not interested in being a part of this costume. We also both thought that people would find it offensive and insensitive. I thought it could be a great public awareness campaign! Also, this is a truly terrifying and disturbing costume. And that's the point right? Going as "Sexy Abusive Boyfriend" - now that would be truly offensive.


2. Boring couple that decided to stay home -

• Wear pajamas, act tired & annoyingly couple-y.

Downfall: couldn't find a way to attach a couch to my ass. Also, none of my couple friends will be out and about to be insulted by this one.
(Although I must say, this could also be an awareness raising costume. Boy, I'm a social worker even on Halloween!)


3. Slutty Therapist -

• This one was fun to joke about with my friends when I was debating whether or not to dress up at my job as an actual therapist on Halloween. (I work at a Youth Community Center and I'll probably be the only one who's not dressed up.)

• Someone suggested that I wear only a long cardigan.

• Keep many tissues in brassiere.

• Uncross and re-cross legs many times.

• Make many suspicious-sounding interpretations about sexual repression and Oedipal complexes.

Downfall: not appropriate for my job as an actual therapist! But it is such a good play on the theme of women dressing up as Sexy Anything on Halloween.


4. Glinda the Good Witch of the North -

• Who everyone would actually like their therapist to be, right?

Downfall: Costume was too complicated. (Although I was very impressed by this costume study.)

So what did I end up with?

Well, I helped my girlfriend come up with a last minute costume of being a bunny rabbit last weekend.
Ingredients: Bunny ears, cotton ball safety-pinned to jeans, black eyeliner used to color nose and draw whiskers.
Results: Everyone knew what she was supposed to be and she looked adorable.

I however, put on everything I own that has a Hound's Tooth pattern on it, and people thought I was supposed to be an Industrial Age Era paper boy. Great.
(Although that doesn't dampen my spirits about hound's tooth being in this fall. I'd just like to publicly announce that I liked it before it was cool.)

Anyways, using the bunny costume as a jumping off point, she is now going as Bunnicula, the Vampire Rabbit, and I'm going as Edgar Allan Crow, a character Bunnicula meets in one of his books.
Very easy to make. Already had some of the stuff (like a lot of black clothes and fabric glue), just bought a bunch of black feathers, a beak, and some face paint.

Crowning jewel: We're going to get a parsnip to look like a drained carrot, put some orange colored fang marks on it, and have orange dribbling from the corner of Bunnicula's mouth.

Happy Haunting!