Hey remember the times when your costumes weren’t motivated by being slutty or trying to impress the shit out of some girl by showing how clever or lazy you are?

“What about a slutty barber, that’s great! I can wear fishnets, and a thong… I never wear thongs, they go right up my butt all the time.” And the girls get all drunk at like the Cat’s Eye or Fez Batik and forget how to get home-you know, ’cause they live in res, and are all free and stuff, ’cause Halloween is the one time they let all this odd sexual frustration out.

Then there are the dudes with their three degrees of costume. Degree one is composed of the pussies who are too scared to dress up, “cause that’s for homos and chicks;” but still go out to clubs and leer at the girls with little clothing on, whose nipples are little rocks ’cause they’re outside with nothing on and Halloween happens in WINTER. But shit, imagine if it happened in the summer-I’m convinced each of us would be born nine months after summer Halloween.

Then there’s degree two: so many guys go as pimps, or priests, or off duty pornstars in a pathetic attempt at creating a sexual dialogue with the slutty barber. Ugh. Enough of that. It’s weak and embarrassing.

Then there’s degree three-those hombres that clever the fuck out of their costume, like they’re some famous semiotician. Then they have to explain it to everyone and get really irritated when the 43rd person doesn’t get it. They roll their eyes and complain to their girlfriends all night.

How about a return to the innocent candy eating? Going to bed at nine because at eight years old a night of walking around your townhouse complex will leave you all sugar high and burned out.

Do you remember the Halloween costumes when you a kid? That was when Halloween truly mattered. Kids got their costumes weeks before, and wore them the whole week leading up to the 31st. They held in their pee because they didn’t want to take the costume off, and in some unfortunate instances a typhoon of urine started to leak out of Spiderman’s one-piece.

But seriously. I remember the glorious costumes of yesteryear like they were tattoos on some hot chick’s bod.

In case some of you turdlingers can’t remember grade two, we’ve included pictures.

If you’ll divert your eyes to exhibit A, there were at least 40 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in my grade two class. Some were clearly made by mom, others emblematic of BiWay steez. All consisted of a little thing called awesome-Turtle Power, Cowabunga Dudes! I’d say that for the boys it was toss up between Michelangelo (the party dude) or Raphael (the one with issues) for illest turtle.

The greatest costume known on planet Earth was this porker kid in my first junior kindergarten class. He went as a Spaghetti-O. I guess his mom or dad or his dad’s or mom’s life partner worked at Heinz. Check out exhibit B. If you look closely, the costume was inflatable. It was the same stuff a beach ball is made of, which only accentuated his girth. Fat kids were always the coolest for a brief period, when the other kids realized they were always packed with snacks.

But I digress. Bart Simpson was a popular gent among the nine-year-old set. None of them little puss buckets could get it right. The colours were way off and the hair (or spiky skin) is too hard to duplicate. They ended up looking really thin and more like just some kids in their own clothes.

Okay, set your flux-capacitors to 1.21 gigawatts, and back to 2003. Some amazing costumes floating out there are those that mean something. For instance, with the recent passing of a hip-hop legend, Mr. Jam Master Jay (his decks spin no more, RIP JMJ), and getting your super-fly crew to sport the whole Run DMC old rappers look. Then there’s Snoop Dog; and if you’re not down with that conscience shit, NWA is always available. So are the Beasties. Eighties pop stars are pretty hype-all the ladies might want to deck out in Cyndi Lauper, or Madonna during the virgin phase, or the permanently wicked Pat Benatar.

Spicolli from Fast Times at Ridgemount High is another hot item for this year’s Halloween digs.

Last minute costumes are a tough thing to pull off well, but with the right mix of relative deprivation and creativity you could be a toilet paper mummy. Just take a minute to wrap yourself up in an empty bathroom. When in doubt, borrow your roommate’s clothes and go as him or her.