Here at Penn, we pride ourselves on working hard and playing hard(-er). For many of the hard players, Halloween is not a night, it's a three-day extravaganza of out-dressing one another. Here are some costumes that will likely grace the City of Brotherly Love's Ivy League campus this week, whether we like it or not.
1. Pope Francis
When the beloved Pope paid a visit to Philadelphia earlier this Fall, Penn students fled. It was a wonderful excuse to spend the weekend isolated at home or raging in New York because Philadelphia "absolutely shut down." Actually, it didn't. And some brave Quakers even managed to see the Pope downtown because, in reality, the crowds were pretty meager. Nonetheless, it was a pretty big deal. Also, this Pope rocks, so why not pretend to be him, just for one night?
2. Pizza Rat
Excuse me, "sexy" pizza rat. Because nowadays, Halloween enables even the most disgusting things to become sexi-fied, even a subway rat stealing an old slice of pizza. (For further clarification...)
Sexy pizza rat costume is just the right level of absurd, hilarious, and skimpy that it might fly at a Penn Halloween downtown. Here's what my personal halloween check list looks like: 1) Revealing enough to combat the inevitable sweat attacks that will befall me as soon as I enter a downtown. 2) Revealing enough that I adhere to 2015's guidelines of Halloween: sexy not scary (kidding, or am I?). 3) Quirky enough to trick people into thinking that I actually exercised some creativity in this outfit. And 4) It almost looks like I don't care about being the hot vampire slayer, see, I am effortless, an odd ball if you will, I am literally a subway rat for Halloween, but still sexy.
3. Netflix and Chill
Welcome to 2015: where your best bet at finding a boyfriend in college is accepting that guy down the hall's invitation to "come over and watch Netflix...and chill." Let us unpack this sentence; in Penn-code, "watch Netflix" roughly translates to "make out" and "chill," being a flexible, ambiguous word in the English language, can literally mean anything. I will let your imagination take the reins here.
4. The Optical Illusion Dress
Because, here at Penn, its neither gold nor blue. It's actually varying wavelengths refracted through the eye's crystalline lens, triggering neural connections in your retina, which transmit sensations to the visual cortex of the brain, indicating the reflectance of colors in your immediate atmosphere. But, wasn't that obvious?
5. Slutty Vampire
It is Thursday night. You have an assignment due at midnight and the downtown starts at 11. You're cramming, you're practically bleeding coffee out of your pores. You finish! Then it dawns on you...you didn't have time this week to think of a creative/sexy/outrageous/unique/flattering halloween costume, and you know everyone else is going to be on fleek. So, how does on adhere to my previously stated checklist? Drag out that slutty corset from that playboy bunny party in high school, splatter yourself with fake blood (ketchup?), and spend thirty minutes on a bomb-ass smokey eye. Done. Sexy vampire. Or over-tired workaholic/wanna-be-Victoria's Secret model that smells like the condiments aisle and needs a shower. Its like that onesie you own that you occasionally wear to class because you spent the entire previous evening either inebriated or in the library. You know you shouldn't do it, but you are really good at talking yourself into it.
