It's Halloween! Costume? Crap.

Blogger's note: This post has been brewing in the queue for two weeks while I begged around for a photo of my costume. But rest assured! It was totally....not worth the wait. Sorry.

Halloween is one of the best holidays. It signals that fall has definitely arrived and brings with it carved pumpkins (with their delicious baked seeds), apple cider (rum optional) and enjoyable scares. I'll never forget the Halloween that a neighbor came after my mom with a chainsaw. Turns out it was a prank and he'd removed the chain, but I'm pretty sure she had to change her underwear nevertheless.

It's also an excuse to wear a costume, which is simultaneously an opportunity for fun and creativity and a hideously daunting task. My perpetual goal is to spend as little money as absolutely possible without looking like the kid in gradeschool who's mom was too cheap to buy a costume but also couldn't sew. You know, he'd be wearing a garbage bag with armholes cut into it and claim to be a 'raincloud' or some shit.

As per usual, I'd made no plans for what to do and Halloween was only a couple of days away. I wandered the house trying to glean inspiration from household items. Women have an immediate costume advantage in the sense that they can take an every day occupational uniform, and simply make it slutty. It's the sexy 'blank' concept, as in sexy nurse, sexy fireman, or sexy garbageman (hey, maybe that garbage bag could work after all!). After brief consideration, I determined that a) I haven't been a college undergraduate in quite some time, and b) it's too damn cold in WI to be skanky for Halloween. I needed maximum coverage.

Where does one turn for trivial ideas and information? To the internets! I found myself on the 'Family Fun' website, which had a lot of cute ideas for kids costumes (in an attempt to avoid the 'sexy' moniker, I was reduced to looking at ideas directed at children). The option of jellyfish cried out to me the loudest for two reasons: it allowed me to wear warm clothing and I already had all of the materials.

I was especially excited to incorporate some yarn that had previously been languishing for almost a year with no prospects. Some of my relatives bought me this big-ass skein of yarn (or BASOY for short) for Christmas last year, and while I think it rocks...I'm not entirely sure what to do with it.

Figure of person added for scale.

Totally tentacles, right? The whole shebang took about 15 minutes to put together, I was warm and happy that night, and the BASOY finally started to find a home. Happy (extremely belated) Halloween!