October 31, the magical pagan holiday we call Halloween. Some people love this occasion because they can use it to dress up and have fun with their friends. If you know those people, laugh at them. Halloween is a war zone; there are no “friends” here. You must get the most candy you can and help no one. The first thing that we need to focus on is costumes. Costumes look nice and they might earn you extra candy, so you must use anything to give yourself the edge against a “friend”. Remember, costumes aren’t about what you want. You must feed off the nostalgia that adults have when they see you. I would recommend things from the ‘80s because that was a time which people miss the most. Other ideas for my low budget friends out there are jeans and a cowboy hat, your old sports uniform, and the epitome of lazy: a Cistercian student. Foolproof!! When getting candy we all know who the prime target is. Saying it out loud makes you sound stupid because you’re probably reading this, but we know that the people who say “Take One” are prime targets. You shouldn’t empty the whole bowl because that isn’t a good thing to do, but no one is stopping you from grabbing a “few” extra, are they?

Now, most people will advise you to wear a mask, get candy, take off the mask, and get some more candy. Don’t listen to them! I would bet that they haven’t actually done it. I tried to do it once, back when I was but a youngling in the distant year of 2016. I wore a weird dementor costume and I went up to a house. Of course, because the universe hates me, it happened to be so that the people handing out candy at that house hated me. I couldn’t see very well because I put a veil over my head and I went up to get candy. I received the candy and left. But, after I lifted the veil, I was recognized because I didn’t change my costume. All I did was lift up my veil. That was pretty dumb. Anyway, after I was recognized by these tweens who barely knew me, they started yelling generic insults trying to hurt my feelings like “YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS”. I started laughing because my friends were literally across the street getting candy and I have no feelings. So, because I was laughing, I didn’t walk as much as I normally would. So, after they yelled some more, someone came over and beat me with their shoe. Basically, if you try to hit the same house twice, you’ll get hit with a shoe. Also, NEVER bring a weird plastic thing to get candy. Just bring a white pillowcase, it works a lot better, trust me.

Now, let’s say you don’t want to walk around the neighborhood to get candy and your parents just bought candy for the neighborhood kids. You only need a few items to keep them away from your house and the candy in your house. First, you need a red balloon. You are supposed to let it float just a little bit above the drainage outlets on the side of the road. Then, get a color printer and print out a picture of Pennywise (any clown works, they’ll be too afraid to check). Note that posterboard works better because you can tape things to the back. Anyway, have the clown’s head in the gutter looking at the people passing by. Then, tape a recorder to the back of the poster board that has Pennywise’s head on it. Have it play his famous voice lines and listen to the screams of terrified people as you munch on your delicious candy.