By Timothy T. Tater, Editor and Chief Spud
The Sweet Potato
Every October 31st, millions of American adults engage in a bizarre ritual that would baffle anthropologists: they spend $89.99 (plus shipping) to temporarily become someone else, receive zero candy for their efforts, and call it “fun.”
The Math Isn’t Mathing
Let’s break down the economics of adult Halloween, shall we?
That Sexy Astronaut costume from Spirit Halloween? $94.99. Your actual winter coat that you’ll wear 100 times? $60 from “We Sell For Less”, and you complained about the price. The irony is not lost on those of us with calculators and basic reasoning skills.
You will wear this costume for approximately 4.5 hours. You will take 47 photos in it. Thirty-nine of those photos will be deleted because “the lighting was weird.” The costume will then live in the back of your closet until 2029, when you’ll finally admit you’re never going to be a Sexy Astronaut again and donate it to Goodwill, where it will haunt some unsuspecting thrift shopper.
The Existential Question: Do You Even Like Being You?
Children dress up because they’re engaging in imaginative play. Also, candy. Mostly candy.
Adults dress up because… wait, why DO adults dress up? Is being yourself really so unbearable that you need a $90 polyester intervention? Is Karen from Accounting so desperate to escape her life that she becomes “Harley Quinn, But Make It Corporate” for one magical evening?
The answer, apparently, is yes. Yes, she is.
The Costume Inflation Crisis
Remember when adult Halloween costumes were just throwing on a witch hat and calling it a day? Pepperidge Farm remembers. Now, adults are out here creating elaborate group costumes that require:
- Planning meetings (yes, plural)
- A shared Google Doc
- At least one passive-aggressive text chain about “commitment”
- Matching accessories from three different websites
- A backup plan for when Derek inevitably bails
- Free lunch from your employer-ONLY, if you dress in costume
- Look ridiculous when you have to step out into the world as “one” of your department’s entire group effort (especially when you are simply an accessory piece or afraid you’ll be demoted if you don’t play along)
Meanwhile, your nephew threw on his Spider-Man pajamas, grabbed a pillowcase, and is currently collecting his weight in Reese’s. Who’s the real winner here?
The Candy Conundrum
Here’s the cruelest joke of adult Halloween: you put in 10 times the effort of any child and receive exactly zero Snickers bars for it.
You spent an hour perfecting your “zombie makeup tutorial” from YouTube. You hot-glued things. You may have mildly injured yourself with said hot glue gun. And for what? So you can go to a party where someone brought a vegetable tray?
Children knock on doors, say three words (“trick or treat”), and are rewarded with candy. You created an entire backstory for your character, stayed in character all night (because you’re “committed to the bit”), and your reward is warm beer in a red Solo cup and someone asking if you’re supposed to be “something from that show.”
The Spirit Halloween Stockholder Paradox
Somewhere, a Spirit Halloween executive is cackling while swimming in money like Scrooge McDuck, and that person is laughing at all of us. They’ve convinced adults that happiness can be purchased in the form of a “Sexy Pizza Rat” costume (yes, that’s real, I checked).
These temporary stores appear in buildings that play the role of the “one night stand.” They peddle their overpriced wares for six weeks, then vanish into the night like they were never there. It’s the perfect crime, and we’re all complicit. Actually, the more I think about the “one night stand,” that might be a funny costume! You really could just go as yourself anywhere and carry a bandstand…that might be a cheap alternative!
The Instagram Industrial Complex
Let’s be honest about what adult Halloween has become: content generation. You’re not dressing up for you. You’re dressing up for the ‘gram. For the TikTok. For the validation that comes from 247 likes and three comments that say “omg iconic.”
You will spend $100 on a costume and 45 minutes getting ready, all for a photo shoot that lasts 12 minutes in front of a decorative pumpkin. Then you’ll change into “something more comfortable” and spend the rest of the night in the jeans you wore to the party anyway.
In Conclusion: We’re All Just Trying to Feel Something
Maybe the real Halloween costume is the existential dread we’ve worn all along.
Perhaps adults dress up not because they want to escape themselves, but because for one night, they can pretend that life is as simple as it was when the biggest decision was whether to trade your Milky Ways for Skittles. When your biggest concern was which houses gave out full-size candy bars, not whether you can remember the skit or dance that your “work friends” (loose term) make you do.
So yes, Linda, buy that $95 Sexy Taco costume. Wear it with pride. Take those 47 photos. Delete 39 of them. And when November 1st rolls around and you’re back to being Regular Linda with Regular Problems, at least you’ll have one good Instagram post and the lingering smell of costume store polyester.
The candy, sadly, remains forever out of reach. But, as “they always say”-“A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips!”
By the way, who are “they?” We will delve into that topic once I finish my research.
Happy Halloween…I guess.
