We've already established that Halloween is on the List. And it goes without saying that putting hours of painstaking construction into building, like, a suit of armor from Halo and hanging outside the comic book store is a little bit much. Better off spending that time making a time machine and going back to a year when you weren't so hopelessly alone. *

But even worse than that is the half-assed Halloween guy rocking some last-minute high concept meta costume that he has to explain to everyone at the party. (Going to a party). You can't just strap a cell phone on your dad jeans and walk around all night looking self-satisfied and say your costume is a Baby Boomer. You can't wear your waiter apron and walk around asking anyone if you can get them another drink and say you're going as a liberal arts major.

I don't get it. Oh, he's a "douche." Makes sense.

There's a pretty simple rule at work here: If you don't want to do something, don't do it. It just makes you look like you caved in to peer pressure at the last second and decided maybe your firm stand against dressing up isn't so bad ass after all. Your whimsical Target employee name tag and shopping bag ensemble don't make you look like a devil-may-care rogue deigning to play along with the proles on their silly holiday, you look like this guy I sat next to at a wedding recently rocking a Pittsburgh Steelers tie. You dressed up in order to say (to some invisible panel of judges who float through the clouds) that you dressed up, but you didn't really dress up. In fact you look even worse than if you hadn't done anything in the first place. Same idea behind the wrinkly khakis and blue oxford you wear to your business casual office. That's the half-assed costume of life. The one where you show up to work every day pretending to be a dude who isn't counting the hours until the sweet, merciful release of the big sleep.

Actually that's a pretty good costume idea: a dead guy. I've got a gun you can borrow if you need one.

If there were an official holiday of The List, it's pretty safe to assume that this would be it. Let's just take a gander, shall we? Halloween is essentially "id" day for everyone who participates, even kids, who are 1.) on the list already and 2.) essentially being ruled by their id anyway.

For adults, Halloween brings out people's most subliminal desire under the guise of doing it for fun or going to a party. Usually translates to girls dressing up as sluts and dudes dressing up like women. I'm dressed as a woman, get it? Isn't it wild? What's wild is your innate desire to be a cross-dresser being on display and it's getting weirder the more of those red solo cups of Natural Light that you throw down. Woah there, guy who makes puns all the time, didn't expect you to come dressed up like a "cereal killer" haha, look at the knife through the box of Cheerios! Woah, Sally, I've never seen a firewoman who wears hot pants and a wet white t-shirt with no bra. Anyway it's probably far past due to put away the catholic school girl outfit there Jim and get back to your basics, which is accounting and watching hockey, both of which also happen to be on the List.