The collegiate world has a different hierarchy of holidays than the rest of the world. I don’t have it exactly figured out, but in my time here at UCSD, I have managed to discern that Halloween is pretty near the top. We live in a community with a number of different religions, so religious holidays are out the window; Thanksgiving is spent with family for the most part, and July 4th is during the summer. That leaves Halloween to battle it out with Presidents’ Day. To the average college student, it’s no contest.
While many will argue that Mardi Gras has a one-up on Halloween because of gratuitous flashing that takes place in exchange for plastic beads, I would encourage those who feel this way to venture over to San Diego State for a bit next Halloween. Many of the women’s costumes over at State provide near-flashing, free of charge.
An evening walk on the San Diego State strip is sure to provide an eyeful for members of both sexes ‹ and leave too many Tritons wondering why they ever chose UCSD over SDSU. For an answer to this question, visit the line at the student health clinic at State in early November.
For those of you who didn’t make it to State this Halloween, allow me to sum up what you missed out on. The ladies wore one of the following costumes (be aware that this list is exhaustive): hot nurse, hot angel or hot devil. That’s what they call “”the big three,”” and they are all meant to show off “”the big two.”” Guys were not wearing costumes, or were dressed as cowboys, complete with jeans and a cowboy shirt. Here at UCSD, however, we hold ourselves to a higher standard.
Everyone faces the same problem on Halloween, and we all sort of deal with it in the same way. You want to be able to get into the party to see what there is to see, but you can’t get in without a costume.
Guys tend to do the bare minimum to get by when it comes to costumes. On one extreme end of this problem is my friend Ross, who won second place in last year’s campus costume contest simply by wearing a red thong. When it comes to Halloween, less is always more.
On the other, admittedly more boring, end of the spectrum are those like myself. Last year, after a midterm on Halloween night, I just threw on a jumpsuit and said I was a mechanic. No one seemed to mind. Freshman year, my roommates and I bought a large quantity of tin foil and wrapped ourselves in it. There were three of us sporting the same costume, and we told people we were a stick of gum, a baked potato, or a love machine, depending ‹ as you might imagine ‹ on who asked. Cleverness can go a long way to replace poor preparation. Unfortunately, we ended up at a party that was packed wall-to-wall, and whenever we tried to dance with anyone, they complained that the foil was scratchy. By the end of the night, very little of the foil remained. Had I not returned home terribly, terribly alone, that might have been a good thing.
With the ladies, the costume is usually planned out a couple weeks in advance, if not more. While some will sport cute and clever outfits, the common denominator for most ladies seems to be that Halloween is just a good excuse to dress up like a skank ‹ and I say this with the sincerest appreciation. The great thing about Halloween is that it is the one day of the year when dressing like a skank doesn’t make people think you are a skank. I have always appreciated the fact that the women of UCSD take that opportunity to take an in-depth look at hoochie-mama culture. Outside of the aforementioned “”big three,”” the Triton ladies of yesteryear have dressed as Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, along with the more generic Playboy bunny, hot cop, Wonder Woman, etc. I cannot remember a single Halloween at UCSD when, on Nov. 1, I couldn’t name more different breeds of slut than two days before. Perhaps my favorite costume of all time is the UCSD girl who dresses as the SDSU girl; So simple yet so effective. I am not sure how this got started, or to what extremes this idea has been carried, but I have seen some variation of it every year. All one needs is an SDSU T-shirt cut into a half shirt, a four-inch skirt, and presto! Life imitating art, imitating ho. Well played.
Dressed risque as either a hobo or a ho-bag, Halloween is the voyeur’s delight. Whether you went out to see or to be seen, hopefully the celebration was appreciated as one in honor of the king of all collegiate holidays, one of the few times of the year when the diverse UCSD community strives and manages to sink to the lows of the Aztecs while maintaining the dignity of being a Triton.
