I Spell Fun H-A-L-L-O-W-E-E-N

Halloween is, by far and away, my favorite holiday. Every year, it's well worth the struggle coming up with the perfect costume, planning the evenings events and not getting the taste slapped out of my mouth for shamelessly ogling all of the lovely boobs that are seemingly shoved in my face with such salacious abandon. I've always heard that Halloween is a holiday for children and twenty somethings. Having been both, I can say that this statement has been, heretofore, wholly correct. What disturbs me about the aforementioned sentiment is the implied notion that, once I reach a certain age, my favorite celebration will cease to deliver on the thrills. This frightens me.

If Halloween ceases to be the highlight of the fall, what do I have left to look forward to? Thanksgiving is good but it is more wholesome than debaucherous. Christmas isn't so much of a holiday as it is a season unto itself. Christmas' encroachment on all other autumn celebrations irritates me. The wonder has completely disappeared and I see it for the corporate cash grab that it is. No, Halloween is the only holiday in the bottom half of the year that still gets this author's dick hard. I rue the day that my spirit has been so irreparably crushed that I don't even bother to consider what to go as.

To say that I take my costuming seriously is an understatement. I'll spare no expense when it comes to making sure that I'm nothing short of authentic. Even if I happen to run into another "whatever I am" while I'm out cavorting, I'm confident that my outfit is superior. I dive into my adopted personality with such enthusiasm that I couldn't remember how to walk properly after a night spent running through Laramie as a Beastie Boy from the Intergalactic video. It took a while to remember that I didn't need to strike a pose on every other step or suddenly start walking backwards.

Halloween also serves as an opportunity to forget about all of your troubles and get lost in the revelry. A few years back, I went as the Joker (this is pre-Dark Knight, when being the Joker wasn't completely fucked out). I was one month out of the most serious relationship I've ever been in and it was a struggle for me to wash myself, let alone have a good time. I knew that if there was one day to say fuck it, it was Halloween. I pulled myself up by the bootstraps and made the effort to put something awesome together. The afternoon I spent dyeing clothes and experimenting with face paint was one of the only times that fall that I felt truly happy and distracted from my heartache. Even though it was just for a moment, I was thankful to have a night set aside where getting buck wild was entirely acceptable.

Trick-or-treating is something I haven't participated in for well over a decade, but I still look forward to the possibility of losing a crown while eating Sugar Babies or making my mouth bleed with fistfuls of Sour Patch Kids. Jamming as much free candy as is humanly possible down your gullet is well worth the annual stomach ache. I'm independent and have lived on my own for a long time now. I can buy and eat candy whenever I please, but there is something about Halloween that makes candy all the sweeter.

Finally, there are few things as bitter sweet as a hangover on November 1. Waking up with a bumping headache, a sandpaper mouth and sore teeth, sometimes in unfamiliar company, means that you had a hell of a time the night before. Even when the Ibuprofen fails to dull the hard edge of alcohol's next day sword, this is the one time per year that I'm not angry with myself for pulling the trigger and slamming that final shot of Jameson or Jager.

With all of this in mind, I am swearing an oath to you, dear reader, to keep running with Halloween long after it becomes socially unacceptable for me to do so. Undoubtedly, when you are out this weekend at the bar or at a party, you'll see the one guy who is holding on to his rapidly fading youth with all he's got. When you see this person, I implore you to go and shove your tits in his face if you're a chick, buy him a shot with a filthy name if you're a dude or both if you're nasty. I'm not asking you to spend your entire evening with this person, just help them keep it real. This may be the last time they get the chance to act a fool for a while; at least until St. Patrick's Day.