Halloween is this Saturday and students are frantically rushing to compile a costume that would solidify their position in either social or competitive victory amongst their peers.

Department store marathons are a common experience in last minute attempts to create the perfect outfit that will utterly floor their friends and question the very meaning of a ‘costume contest’ due to the sheer magnitude of their landslide win. But what constitutes a ‘good’  Halloween costume?

The witches brew recipe that creates a memorable Hallow’s Eve getup is a unique take on a familiar theme that will not offend the common party goer. To demonstrate this, let’s consider the cat.

The cat, though a fine household pet, has become a stamped cliché for the spooky holiday, especially with females. Admittedly it is a simple and easy costume, but the problem lies in the mass replication which complies with the familiarity that is needed but kills the creativity exponentially with the ‘cute’ black whiskers, black leggings and black t-shirt.

Now it seems as a simple fix to the creativity complex would be to just make a kitty costume that is unique. Easier said than done. One way could be to go deeper and more obscure into the feline family. With that, though, you add the necessity to explain your outfit to every confused peer that approaches you. Which creates an inquiry, not a party.

So how do we, as participants of Halloween traditions, go about this Cat-2.0?

I believe that we should no longer consider the cat. Halloween is about having fun and expressing yourself in an unique and creative way and, frankly, the classic black cat (or any variation of its feline qualities) breaks the sacred code of costumes; the witches brew recipe of familiarity, originality and morality. There is almost no possible way for any high school student to make a cat Halloween costume that follows these guidelines, so I plead you to stop considering the cat.