• Great post. My mom's birthday is on Halloween. Halloween was a distant second at my house.

• Not sure where this one would fit, in regards to best or worst, I would classify it as down right wrong. My girlfriend's parents decided it was a good idea to dress her up as Aunt Jemaima when she was around 4 years old, Blackface and all.

• I am laughing out loud at these comments. I don't think I can top these. Oh man, too funny.

• my best halloween was when i dropped a ton of acid and went to a costume party. afterwards we were walking through the streets and thought the zombies had risen it was the scariest halloween ever

• This year i was a zombie on the actual halloween date but on the thursday before there was a kegger. so i went out as a bearded lady. on the way home from said kegger, a car pulls up to me and asks me to come over. thinking they wanted directions i did so. then this guy asks, "500 dollars cash to get in the car" and i said "are you kidding me?! i have a beard!" and he said "ok, 1000 dollars cash"

• It was third grade. My parents had entered an ultra-conservative religous phase that would last 3 years. No Rock and roll, no halloween. But damn it the class was having a party it was my last chance as 4-6 graders did not wear costumes to school. My mother being a theatre geek had costume bits and pieces in her closet. After both mom and dad went to work I found a red hooded cape, put my school books in a Easter basket and walked to school. I thought I was pretty awesome. During the costume parade to the other classrooms no one could guess who I was as the cape was made for an adult woman and I totally disappeared in it. After I got home I put the stuff back and my parents were none the wiser... so needless to say there are no pictures.

• This is probably both a best/worst story... 8th grade. My best friend & I joined a group of people with our girlfriends to take in the Haunted House that had been set up on the nearby military base. It was several of those really large 3-pole tents they use out in the desert linked together... Once inside, a maze had been set up for people to walk through. Some pretty scary exhibits here and there. But it was the very end of the journey that was the peak of the performance. All I'd heard from anyone that had gone the year before was that it was the "scariest thing they'd EVER been a part of"... As we walked into the area, it widened from the 4-5 foot hallways to a regular sized room. But there was nothing here. Then, all of the sudden, all the blacklights and other small neon lights went out. Pitch black. My girlfriend gripped my arm. BAM!!! We all turned around, back towards where we'd just come from. Nothing. Just a lot of heavy breathing... Suddenly, the sound of a chainsaw in the distance. But what direction?! A couple of people started to whimper a bit. My best friend says, "I don't like this. What's going on?!" We hear rustling and all turn back around again. A couple of the blacklights turn back on and we see something coming from up ahead in the room. A dim spotlight shines down from over our heads and we see a masked lumberjack coming at us. He raises his chainsaw as he's lurching faster towards our group. We all start to cower as he SWING THE CHAINSAW RIGHT THROUGH US!!! It was a fucking hologram! And a DAMN good one too! My girlfriend pissed her pants and my best friend shit his. We were ALL breathing/panting VERY heavily as some additional lights came on and we saw the exit up ahead of us... To this day, I've never been so scared in my life...

• How in the hell did that happened... I could have swore I clicked on the Batman link....

• Don't ask me how, but i posted this in the wrong thread... what the fuck?

• I'll submit this for a Best or Worst - it could be either. It was 1993, Sophmore year of college and I was into cyberpunk. I decided I was going to go as a "decker" for Halloween. I had the black trenchcoat with odd symbols pinned onto it, an old computer painted up to look like a deck hanging off me, and mirrorshades. The part that really sold it though was that I had found this bowtie with blinking lights. I took the lights out and spirit-gummed them to my forehead and added latex to make it look like they were embedded in my forehead. It kind of stung but I wasn't sure why and as I drank through the night it didn't really seem to matter. Later that evening someone offhandedly asked what smelled like burning flesh. I didn't think anything of it until I got back home and took off the costume and lights to discover that the exposed wire to the lights had given me good second degree burns on my forehead. I still have scars! D'oh. I should scan an old photo from that year.

• This is like plucking A+ episodes out of a sea of A grade episodes! This series was just fucking WIN... PERIOD! I mean it put FOX on the map, for crying out loud! Who the hell cared about that channel before they aired this?!?!?

• My mom has sent me out dressed as a black ghost for the past 27 out of 28 years....

• A few years ago I made my own costume and thought it was pretty creative. I was an "I'm thinking Arby's" guy, and managed to make an Arby's logo hover above my head like in the commercials. As I walked around work, people would see the Arby's logo bouncing up and down above the cubicle walls, and it got a lot of laughs. At the company costume contest I took second place, losing to someone dressed as... a cat. A CAT! A FRICKING CAT! How super original is that idea? NO ONE DRESSES AS A CAT FOR HALLOWEEN! If it was at least a hot girl dressed as a slutty cat, that'd be something, but this was a dude dressed as a cat. No creativity at all, all the judges just happen to like cats. Bull$#!T. I'm still angry about that.

• Worst (a two parter): The year my then-girlfriend (now wife) and I went as Slave Leia and Cobra Commander (hooded), respectively. Both homemade costumes, and both were pretty kick ass. Anyway, that night gave us two moments of great sadness: A) A guy hitting on my GF when I went to the bathroom asked if she was there with the blue KKK guy. This is sad in the sense that there is some fucktard out there that really thinks that the KKK wear blue uniforms with Cobra logos. I couldn't care less that he was hitting on her, but jeebus dude...know your history/cartoons. And B) my wife, who's costume was incredibly accurate, lost an "80's Female Costume Contest" to a generic 80s girl. As in, someone who just threw a big hair wig and an ACDC shirt on and screamed, "I'm from the 80s!" beat out Slave Leia, the sex icon from the early 80s. We were pissed off. Cobra Commander almost slaughtered some bastards that night in retaliation, but Destro bumbled my plans. Best: This year, while I saw a LOT of unoriginal "Hey, I'm just going to throw a hoodie and some face paint on for my costume," I also saw several nerdy, homemade costumes worn by kids in the neighborhood. But the best? A kid decked out in a homemade Predator outfit, complete with working LEDs. A photo of it can be seen here (with me as my namesake here): http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/photo.php?pid=34029498&id=51800315 'Twas the best because it actually restored my hope that there is still a future for our kids.

• This year I went to church on halloween night with my girlfriend. Worst halloween ever.

• Dear Topless Robot Forum: My story is simple, short and naughty. My friend J. and I were pushing the upper edge of "too old to trick or treat" (15 I think) and still out at a time when many folks had turned off their lights and stopped handing out candy. We decided to hit one more block and then call it a night. When we rang the doorbell at the first house we were greeted by an incredibly hot 25 year old woman wearing a nearly see-thru baby doll. She was a little flustered and made some comment about being just about to turn in for bed. Her candy bowl (insert comment here) was on the floor and when she leaned down to grab a huge handful for each of us (two separate trips down) her negligee gapped enough to provide us both with full view of her "hidden glories." Eventually we recovered enough to say thank you and moved on. When we'd finished the rest of the block we noticed that her light was still on and quickly switched out parts of each others costumes to make a pathetic attempt to look like two new costumes (despite being the only kids out at this point). We went back to her house and were treated to exactly the same story and exactly the same show. Even sadder, we tried the costume swap again. Clearly, she knew what was going on yet...she gave us the same "treat." This time she made a big show about how she wouldn't fall for this again and was going to bed. Sure enough, as soon as she closed the door she turned off the porch light...and then the living room lights making the entire house dark. Within seconds, the light in the front bedroom clicked on and we were able to watch her slip out of the baby doll, spin around in front of the window, climb in bed and turn out the light. Best Halloween Ever.

• I think my both greatest and most shameful Halloween moment had to have been the year in middle school that I dressed as Jar Jar Binks. In my defense, I had a falling out days before Halloween with my school pals and I was willing to dress as the token fool if it meant I'd be with them as opposed to staying at home. I went ahead and spent all my savings at the time on a high-detail latex mask and just half-assed the rest of the outfit. It was a really last-minute thing. A neon green wind-breaker with a neon orange hunting vest on top, a blue striped shirt underneath, blue jeans topped with black sneakers...This is what a Gungan of the future would wear. Ultimately, I was ditched in the most horrible fashion possible. When I showed up to the party, somebody shoved me off the house steps into the wet grass. I went trick-or-treating by myself. It all ended in me getting mauled by a small gang of children dressed as Darth Maul as their parents watched on, smiling. I, a nonbeliever in worst possible situations, began laughing as well... ...Until I realized that they took my candy, they did. That was the last time I went trick-or-treating before my senior year in highschool when my friends and I dressed as cops and went door to door asking about disturbances and taking candy as evidence. (Uh, this was before I realized that this was illegal...)

• I'm glad the deadline is 12:01pm! I thought I actually missed the deadline - hoooooooray! I grew up in a total suburban neighbourhood. While this was not a bad thing, kids can be total douchebags when fireworks are freely accessible. Me being a paranoid mess, especially with local urban legends of the kid who stuck rockets up cats' asses, it was incredibly important that I locked the cat in my bedroom each Halloween. My cat was not particularly friendly, and every year he got increasingly furious with me for locking him up. Fast forward to Halloween 96 (give or take a year), I was dressed up as Ranma, and a really good friend was dressed up as Ryoga. (Laugh if you must, but I had a bad-ass Ranma wig... too bad I was the little known fat white kid version of Ranma). We tried and tried but could not catch my cat to put him in my makeshift jail. Finally we trapped him and he was cowering on the stairs. For whatever reason, despite the cat hissing and growling at us, Ryoga decided to crouch on a lower stair ... EYE LEVEL with the cat ..... and start poking him while making funny noises. While traumatic at the time, the blood all over his face from the cat scratching him, millimeters below his eye, was pretty damn awesome. Totally went with the costume too, it was like we were just in some crazy martial arts tournament. The cat was placed in jail shortly thereafter.

• @ jolly bitch great, an elitist hipster ten year old.

• @ Katie You are my hero.

• This Halloween might have been my worst ever. I work seasonally at a costume store (which I actually don't mind), but this year: 1. I worked every day for two weeks for at least an hour over the time I was scheduled WHILE going to school full-time during the day 2. I ended up with a flu and fever; the only exception to #1 above was when I had to go home and ran a 102 fever, ironically the day that the owner/our boss was passing out gift certificates for suggesting accessories for costumes (which I always did anyway), and finally 3. I became pregnant around this time, despite being on the pill, and, by Halloween, was in the tired/achy/nauseated stage. Add to all this that we didn't have money for my dream costume this year and I didn't get a single piece of candy when I finally dragged myself home after dark on the 31st, the busiest day of the year. Happy Bloody Halloween, everyone.

• My best moment happened last night. My son is 10 and my daughter is 8. We were trick or treating last night and ended up in the same driveway as another group of people. One of the kids in the other group was dressed as darth maul. My son goes up to him and says, "dont you know the only good star wars are the originals. Dont you know any better?". He turns to me and says " i cant believe he would admit in public to liking that crap". My daughter, who remember is 8, turns to him and says leave him alone, he's a lost cause. I bet he even liked the new indiana jones". I was so proud i just stared at the dad with the other kids with this smug look on my face. BTW...my son went at captain mal.

• Oh yes! My best halloween ever was the year I went as a pink Power Ranger. My mom made me the costume from scratch like she did every year, even making some pull over boot things. I also had my AMAZING Power Morpher from McDonalds (which was probably the greatest Happy Meal Toy I ever got). I even had pink Power Ranger gloves that had little buttons in them that made "HIYA!" and "SWOOSH" noises. Those gloves were awesome. ::sigh:: Anyway. Me and my best friend Eric had our stupid pictures taken before we went out trick-or-treating. I got a butload of candy and I was coming home in that exhausted pre-sugar Halloween crash when some asshole kid dressed as the fucking red Power Ranger runs over to me and pushes me saying, "Pink is for girls. Girls are stupid." I didn't even know this kid, but I didn't have a problem using all of the strength I had left to get some momentum going in my pillow case of candy and slam it square into the center of his back. He fell and before I walked away, I pressed the button on my glove that when "HIYA!" and did the most awesome ninja kick ever. My dad was so proud of me, he let me stay up and watch Walker Texas Ranger with him while my mom slept and we ate candy and drank coffee.

• This year was, hands down, my best Halloween ever. My friends and I kicked it off this year around 1:30 in the afternoon at the park. We had a Nerf/Melee War [in full costume, I might add!]. Following the 4 hour long fest of epicness we went trick or treating--every one of us 17+. Lastly, we hit up the local theater for the annual, audience interactive showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show. New goal in life: to top this.

• My worst Halloween was last night. At a party a couple of weeks ago, I was at a party where a chick asked me what I was doing for Halloween. Unfortunately, I had to work so I turned down her invitation for some party that now sounds like it could have been awesome. And then two days ago, I got laid off. Shit. As I never got her number, I ended up staying home on Halloween and reading all the comments on this page. Entertaining, but freaking pathetic.

• It was the mid-nineties and I was a 11--a skinny nerd girl with thick glasses sliding down my nose, a huge hand-me-down college sweatshirt, the works. I was also an older sibling and very protective of my baby sister and her friends, so I was growling around like a very pathetic little bulldog when we went trick-or-treating. Back in those days, it was pretty usual for one teenage idiot on another to break out a chainsaw and run up and down the street scaring the littler ones. When he came out at us, my sister took off screaming for the bushes and something kind of snapped in my mind. I went after "Jason" in a 60lb, elbow-flailing, fit of prepubescent sibling rage. He waved the chainsaw in my face and I batted his arm away and wailed on him with my bag of candy, calling him every name I knew (probably pretty pathetic). And I followed him and kept shouting until he retreated back into his garage. In hindsight, it must've been hysterical to watch--a *tiny* little girl with huge thick glasses working herself up into a rage against a college-aged guy with a revved chainsaw. Still, it proved to me then that I didn't have to put up with assholes, and remains my best Halloween memory to this day.

• My best Halloween was probably this past one- my college had a small party, with a costume contest. I wasn't sure if I wanted to really enter said contest- I mean, others were decked in Zombie makeup, one guy had a full-on, mascot-style wolf costume...I was just wearing a Legs Avenue "Strawberry Girl" costume that I bought off the rack at the local Halloween Express. But I figured I'd just enter in for the hell of it. During the judging, we had to step forward, and say who we were in front of all present. I introduced myself as "Strawberry Hoecake", and said that they could see my "Purple Pie Pimp" after the party for pricing. I won "Most Original Costume", and got a $25 Wal-Mart giftcard for my trouble. My worst Halloween was probably the year my parents just decided to wrap me toddler-me in aluminum foil, and say I was a Hershey's Kiss.

• When I was in high school, there was a crawlspace between the catwalk and the light booth in the school auditorium. When one was locked, all you would have to do was climb upside down along some narrow pipes to the other space in the pitch dark. This task often fell to me, because I was always acting like a tough guy. One Halloween, as I was crawling across, I heard a breathing below me in the dark. I wasn't sure I was actually hearing it, but it was clearly a deep, heavy breathing sound. I figured, "Gumby, you're probably insane, get someone else to make sure you're hearing things right." I asked my friend Bill to listen down the crawlspace and asked what he heard. "Heavy breathing," he told me. OK, so Bill and I are both insane. Let's ask a girl. They're not prone to believe in the stupid and insane as easily. So we got my girlfriend Jen to listen. She also heard the breathing. So maybe we're not just hearing things. Bill convinces me and Jen to climb in there with him in the pitch black and see if we can find where it's coming from. About halfway across, we hear the sound coming from below us, and it seems to be changing in regard to our presence. "Why don't you climb down there and see what it is. We'll stay up here," Bill says. I tell Bill, "OK, let's think about this: It's dark and raining outside, it's Halloween, it's pitch black down there, and the two of you want me to climb down there alone and see if there really is a scary monster down there in the dark." "That's right," Bill replies. "Have you ever actually watched a horror movie? We might as well go check out the attic when we see blood drip from the ceiling. Any other day of the year I would go down there. Today? Fuck that, not happening." We all agreed and crawled out, about to piss our pants in fear. We all vowed to come back the next day with flash lights and search again. It turned out to be a leaking steam line. As it built up pressure, it let out a blast that made it sound like breathing. I'll never forget that night though, and the total pussy I turned into in front of my friend, girlfriend, and self. Way to go, tough guy.

• One year my friends and I were escorting out younger sibs around trick or treating. I must have been 16 or so. We had decided that as High Schoolers we were too cool to dress up. One house we went to, when they answered the door, looked over and cooed at the younger kids then looked at me and said "That is an awesome Axel Rose" I was not wearing a costume . . . . Just a 16 year old blond chick in jeans, a flannel shirt (This was 1990) and a backwards baseball cap. My friends had something to laugh about for the rest of the year.

• I was 11 years old. I had just gotten out of leg braces the year before. Remember the braces Forrest Gump wore? They were like those, except much more uncomfortable. Forrest could walk with little trouble. I had to walk with my legs kind of spread out at the hips, on two crutches. For five years. Anyway, this would have been only my second Halloween without being saddled by those braces. I had gone to a lot of trouble to make a homemade Frankenstein outfit. My mother drove me down to my school for the party (they discouraged trick or treating back then and wanted the kids to come to a school party). As I was about to get out of the car, I noticed that none of the kids going into the school were wearing costumes. We drove back home, I took off my costume, and went back to the party. Nowadays teenagers and full grown adults dress up, but back in the 70s, apparently 11 years old was too old to dress up. I still have a hard time believing that.

• Oh, and once I handed out candy at my parent's home while eating pretend brains a la Hannibal Lecter. Everyone thought it was simultaneously disgusting and funny. Except they didn't realize they were real brains...from the hobo. I'd kept his body in a freezer for an entire year. I hope nobody involved in law enforcement reads this blog.

• One year I made out with three different Johnny Depps. One from Fear and Loathing, one from Edward Scissorhands, and one (of course) pirate. This was after seeing a talented local band who dressed as zombies and played covers of songs like "Rock the Casbah" as if they were dirges. And I was dressed as a Klingon.

• You know, one year I killed a hobo. He reeked of vodka, sulfur and had crazy eyes. I thought he was a demon, or at least someone in a really terrifying costume. I impaled him using a plastic scythe (I was the reaper). You know, I was going to say this was a traumatic experience, but it was actually pretty awesome.

• Man, last night was the best AND the worst.

• My greatest Halloween moment was when I was about 13, my step father invited me and a friend to "scream on the beach" (a sort of commercialized haunted house in my area). We watched IT for the first time that evening to set the mood. When we got to this place it was a segment of a strip-mall converted into a 'haunted' house, we could hear people intermittently screaming inside. The scheme of the haunted house was a sort of surprise tactic, you go through weird places and the people jump out and scare you. There were a few themed rooms, which overall wasn't very impressive to a few 13 year olds (especially when you saw the people before they tried to scare you). The last room we were in was completely dark and was a sort of maze, I ran into alot of the walls and realized they had assorted textures: some were sticky, wet, slimy, bumpy, and any combination therein. This got old pretty fast because there were also a few people that used the scare tactic in the completely dark maze. Finally we were nearing the end seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I looked for surprise employees waiting to dart out from the corners but didn't see any. the corridor funneled my step dad, my friend, and me into a single file line. All the sudden I hear monstrous roar and someone grabbing at my waist, I twist my body around throwing the assailant a backhand, hitting him square in the face. I continue walking towards the exit surprised I actually hit somebody (I could hear him yelling "ohmygod that kid just broke my nose!"). I guess all those years in kung-fu finally paid off. It wasn't until 2 years later I was in high school sitting in the lunch room with a few friends and acquaintances, someone starts talking about one of their friends working at "scream ow the beach" 2 years ago, and how a customer couldn't handle it and just punched an employee. It turned out they had to go to the hospital and ended up with a broken nose. I realized that someone was me. I felt really bad about it at the time and I still do, but now it's one of those things you can't help but laugh about. ~kung-fu Gates

• Goddamn, there are so many awesome entries this time. Zorrt1 is now God of the Nerds, Rob Bricken can GTFOutta here.

• My best Halloween moment was when my Dad suggested to my brother and I that we each bring along another bag, go on opposite sides of the street and each say that our brother was sick, but we brought along his bag. We each got twice as much candy and nobody was the wiser. Dad got some candy for being the brains. We pulled that scam for the next several years.

• Best Halloween moment ever? Easily the year as a kid when I demanded to be Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Lo and Behold come Halloween Minnesota is hit by a vicious blizzard and not only do I have the most appropriate costume, but the only way we could find our way from house to house was my glowing red nose (ok, not really, but child-me believed it). I also got to go Trick-or_Treating twice that year because my Mom decided to blizzard was too bad and took me to the mall, then my Dad got home and decided to take me out anyway.

• This was about...I'd say 6-7 years ago. We were all at my friends apartment, candy at the ready(and condoms for the teenagers, because we promote safe sex thank you very much), watching horror movies and waiting for the knock. Things were going normal for us, drinking too much, scaring the kids by opening the door really quickly and yelling at them(this was my friend DJ, what a character). The problem was, we started to run out of candy. A quick look through the apartment and all we found were about 5-6 potatoes. So we did what any group of community minded 20 somethings would do in that situation. We diced up the potatoes, and decided that based on certain criteria, some kids would get what candy we had left, and others would get potatoes. We took small handfuls, and would put our hand in their bag when we dropped it so they couldn't see it. Not one of them caught on. There were two amazing side effects to this plan. 1 - Because the potato was diced, it would coat everything they had in their bag, so it would all be slimy and smell of potato. I'll admit it, we were assholes. 2 - This happened the next year. I was working at a Boys & Girls club, and when Halloween came around everyone was excited, but I kept overhearing people saying they didn't want to go back to the potato house. It took all my self control not to fall over laughing.

• Best: I was Wario from the Super Mario series my Freshman year in High School. Sure, everyone laughed, but it was fucking awesome. Worst: My little brother was Waluigi the very next year. Fucking copy cat

• In the early 90's, during my junior year of college, some friends and I went to one of the Jay-Cee-run haunted houses. Alcohol was involved. At the time, I had something of an 'aggressive' personality, probably caused by being an infantryman in the National Guard and studying martial arts. We're close to the end of rather ho-hum haunted house experience, when some guy, dressed as a classic Jason--big padded clothes, hockey-mask, and chainsaw jumps out at me. I go from yawning my way through a mildly entertaining experience to full on (drunken) flight or fight. I side step the (chainless) chain saw, and side kick 'Jason' in the stomach. Hard. 'Jason' falls back, knocking over some of the plywood walls used as dividers, and lays on his back writhing and holding his stomach. One of my friends looks at me and says, "Dude. You beat up Jason." We left hastily at that point. Best Halloween ever. Bragging rights for life. I beat up Jason. And, if someone reading this had some drunk college kid go ape-crazy on them while working in a haunted house...I'm actually really sorry. Honestly.

• I remember when I was like 8 I got some really ugly purple monster costume and couldn't see out of the mask very well. It was basically just a hood with black lining for the eyes. I made a mad dash for a house after my sister and her friend just came back from there with cans of soda. Unfortunately, not being able to see very well I did not see the tree that I soon would have an impact with. My sister still tells me that it was like watching a cartoon because of how I hit it and fell back. I ended up having to go home after hitting my head so hard and never got that soda.

• Disregard all previous "best ever" entries, Zorrt1 just pwned us all.

• Best and worst in one entry. The year was 1987, during my sophomore year in high school. I was way too old to go trick or treating, but I was invited by a girlk that I really liked to help her chaperone her kid brother and his friends around the neighborhood while they collected their candy. I could have just dressed normally, but I wanted to show off the physique that I busted my ass building up every day after school, so I showed up dressed as Road Warrior Hawk. Yes, I gave myself a haircut (reverse mohawk) and painted my face with the trademarked red and black warpaint. I took some of my old football pads and doctored them up to look like the spiked gear the Roadies wore. I even pulled off a passable Hawk impersonation, vocal-wise. The prospective girlfriend was weirded out yet impressed, especially since I was parading around with my midsection and arms exposed. In spite of what lies they tell you, all girls appreciate beefcake. Yeah, I was in good with her. A lot of the kids trick or treating mistook me for the real thing, which was cool. Fast forward to the next school day. There I was, now completely shaved (I wasn't going back to school with a reverse mohawk, so I went for a Telly Savalas look) and the red face paint, even a couple of days on, wouldn't completely come off. It looked like I was permanently blushing. Which was made worse when the dickhole of a vice-principal was looking for a patsy to blame some high school shenanigans on. Apparently some junior geniuses in the art departmnet descided to make a clay penis and sneak it to one of the home economics teachers. Looking for anyone who looked guilty, I was singled out by vice-principal dickhole, since my face looked flushed. It took my mom coming down to the school to convince the jerk that yes, it was indeed face paint that was on my face and not the guilt of making a clay ding dong, and even then I received no apology, just a half-hearted "I'll be keeping my eyes on you" remark from fuckface. I made sure to not have any leftover facepaint on when I loaded down the back of fuckface's Toyota truck with a load of pig shit I procurred from a local farm...

• When I was 12 I dressed as Sir Daniel Fortesque from the MediEvil game for Playstation. My best friend went in a zombie outfit his mom made. Everyone thought we were Frankenstein and Igor. Fuck my life.

• Best: Making out with a girl in someone's laundry room dressed in my full Spock costume. Worst: Mom always conning me out of trick or treating with various VHS movies. One year it was Batman and Robin. Nuff said.

• Tierney! I think you win. Also, I dressed up Tom Baker's Doctor this year. (And no, I didn't crush my windpipe and almost die. This is a best ever story, not a worst ever story.) I made a K-9. For those of you who aren't in the know, K-9 is a robot dog who traveled with the Doctor through time and space for quite some time. He is awesome and looks like this: http://revolutuck.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/k9.jpg Anyway, I had the usual Tom Baker outfit; hat, 22 foot-long multicolored scarf, long brown coat, packet of Jelly Babies to offer to random people, etc. But I also had a life-size, radio-controlled K-9. I took a toy car, cardboard, foam, styrofoam, spray paint, and metal, and I made a robotic dog. He had ears, and a tail, and a collar, and I put him on a leash so he wouldn't get lost. Basically, it was the most amazing thing ever. Even people who had never seen Doctor Who stopped me to gush over the little robotic dog driving up and down the street. Oh, and there was the year when I went as the Audrey 2 from Little Shop of Horrors, complete with flowerpot, mask, and tentacle leaves; but that's another story.

• I'd probably have to say mine was about seven hours ago when I came home, got on TR, then got on the contest page, and started to type about how some incredibly drunk chick, a mere two hours before that, had vomited right on my (open-shirted, I was Jim Morrison) chest. However, I myself was too incredibly drunk to even type. Seriously. I couldn't get past the name and email section. So, yeah, that was pretty awesome.

• This year, I had plans of grandeur when me and a group of friends were going to go out as Dream, Lucifer, The Corinthian, and I as Golden Age Sandman, all from The Sandman. But alas, the sales associate at the Army/Navy surplus store, instead of putting me down for next day delivery, put me down for standard, week-long delivery, the bitch! (Luckily, she was fired). The kid who was Dream had a rockin' costume, so he was fine. My friend's dad wouldn't let him bleach his hair to be Lucifer, and my friend's mom wouldn't let him go out as a serial killer with an eye fetish. I decided to change my costume to the Fourth Doctor, since I had the perfect hair, a trench coat from Sandman, and my mom knit me a 8 foot long Doctor Who scarf for Christmas the year before, but everyone thought I was a hobo. My friend who was going to be Lucifer went as Lucian, Dream's librarian, and everyone thought he was conductor, and the Corinthian went, out of pure and utter angst, went as the fucking Green Ranger from Power Rangers. To add to that, i had to go to church that night to alter serve, so it pretty much sucked ass all together.

• My story might seem out of place here but I'll go ahead and put it here. It was my last Halloween that I went trick or treating. Yeah, I was one of those teenage assholes that still go trick or treating even though at the time I was about to start high school. Our school was going to have a Halloween party (where they give you bags of candy so you stay off the streets) so I thought I'd dress as something out of the ordinary and dress as a girl! Unfortunately, even though I have two older sisters, there really wasn't much laying around the house that would fit me so my costume ended up being a frankly ugly green dress, with pantyhose and a cheesy blond wig among other things. I went to the party and hooked up with two classmates. One was a chick dressed as a punk rocker with whore makeup and spiked, colored hair (from that crap you spray out of cans), and my buddy who didn't even bother to dress up. The party itself was uneventful, though there was one kid dressed as a , um, black man complete with fro and God knows what he used to darken his face, and another dressed as a clansmen. Before you call bullshit, this was back in the days before political correctness (pre 90's) where people really didn't bat an eye at this sort of thing and figured it was just another costume. I don't even live in the south! There was a moment when I breakdanced on the floor to some Run DMC someone had playing. But this party wasn't even my main point. No, what made this my best, and last Halloween moment happened afterwards. We left the party and walked towards a nearby park, near where the "punk" girl lived. My buddy, who was a constant horndog, badly wanted to get into her pants. Unfortunately for him, she had been wanting to get into mine and told him she wouldn't do anything unless I'd let her give me a handjob. Five minutes later I'm getting a handy in the middle of the park late at night with her hand under my skirt while my buddy suspiciously hid behind a tree watching us. I had to lift my "skirt" to accomodate the punk girl. Suddenly a cop car pulls up the road down the hill from where we were sitting and starts shining a spotlight around from his cruiser. We had no time to run as we were sitting on the grass, so we just laid flat on our backs, while I wondered how I was going to explain this to my parents. The spotlight even went right over my dress, but luckily my shitty costume made me look more like the Swiss Miss chick than some crossdressing slut, and so I blended in. So this doesn't become (more) x-rated, I will skip the rest. So my best Halloween was me dressed in drag in the middle of some park getting a handjob by someone who vaguely looked like a young Pat Benatar, while my friend punched his clown watching us behind a tree. The bastard never did get anything that night so he blabbed to the rest of the class about what we'd done. That was shitty, but the fact I forgot to pick up candy at the party pissed me off more.

• Worst Story: I can't remember my age at the time, but I was between 8-10. I had been BEGGING my Aunt to take me to a haunted house, and there was much discussion about weather I was old enough to go. Mom was worried it would give me nightmares, etc. After promising that I would be fine my Aunt finally took me, but before we even paid for our tickets I was terrified. Of course, I wasn't going to say anything at that point! So, we got our tickets, walked up some stairs, and I saw a strange picture frame on the wall with a seemingly realistic portrait. I just KNEW something was going to jump out of it, and when the actor opened his eyes and leaned forward to shout at me, I already had my fist in action. I punched the poor bastard right in the nose and bloodied the hell out of it. Everyone was mad at me, but at least I didn't have to go through the rest of the haunted house. I mean, that's because they kicked me out, but I was relieved. Best Story: My future husband and I started dating after a night of ridiculous nerd flirtation at a Halloween LARP. Five years later we have a nerd baby who had to suffer through a yoda costume last night.

• @LealahLupin3, my niece went as Harry Potter this year! But she's seven. Even so, I think it's hilarious that when her mom asked her why she didn't want to be Hermione she got an incredulous look on her face and asked why anyone would ever want to be Hermione instead of Harry freaking Potter.

• @Segasonicdude: That'd be a cool story, bro, if you would go back and redo the random capitalization and the almost complete lack of punctuation. Readability is fun!

• My favorite Halloween memory comes courtesy of my older sister. I was probably 5 or 6, and for some reason she decided to take me and my brother to one of those scary walk-throughs, but we were pretty small so she went through yelling, "I've got little kids here, don't jump out and scare them!" Well, one guy didn't pay heed to this advice and proceeded to jump out in front of us wielding a chainsaw. If he would have known my sister, he would have realized it is a mistake to piss her off, but he soon learned his lesson when he got a punch in the face and a kick in the ribs after he'd fallen to the floor. She then grabbed my hand and gently told me just to "step over the asshole" and we continued on our way.

• I thought I wouldn't have an entry...until last night. I dressed up as a Silent Hill Nurse. I was damned proud of my mask and even though it was roasting I managed to keep it on the majority of the night. So about half an hour in this guy sits down next to me and is telling me how much he loves the costume. I pulled down the mask to thank him. I turned away and 2 minutes later I get tapped on the shoulder by the guys friend. "You have a choice you can go home with your boyfriend or you can go home with him"" Again I politely refused. The it dawned on me.... I hadn't taken my mask off at all up to that point. The dude wanted to go home with me in the mask having no idea what I looked like under it! Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

• @Kaoy: Dude, do you have any pics of that costume, because it sounds kick-ass. OBSCURE NERDY BRITISH FANTASY FICTION FTW!!!!!five

• I'm sure mine will pale in comparison, but back in elementary school, I was a three-time, three-time, <em>three-time</em> first place winner in the school's Halloween contests. First year, fourth grade, I was a Navy SEAL, and decked out in a bunch of my dad's military camo and equipment, along with other stuff we got in my size. Second year, fifth grade, I went as Mario, complete with big buttons on the overalls, big mustache, and big nose. Plus a custom Mario "M" hat I still have to this day, though it has since faded. Third and final year, sixth grade, I went as the villainous Saddam Hussein, who was the talk of the time, thanks to that whole Gulf War thing. I carried around a sign which said "I'm Insane Hussein, and you thought <em>you</em> were scary!" All three times, I got first prize, and took a toy over the money, as it was worth more and my parents were only too willing to let me exploit Walmart's rather lenient return policies of the day. Though I do sort of wish I'd kept the Spy Gear (I think that's what it was called?) long-range listening device. I'm only too sure that everyone else in that school was glad when I moved on to seventh grade in middle school.

• Here in Israel we don't have halloween, we have Purim. It's essentialy the same, wear costumes, parade the streets, get drunk. The only diff is there is nothing in the bible about candy. Anyhow, on Purim, afew years ago, I was still a soldier in the army, on my second year of service. And on my way to the base some olderly woman stops me and tells me I'm a cute boy and my soldier costume is really well made. I was stunned, I told her I'm a real soldier on my way to my base. She went silent and walked away. I was honestly offended XD I might look abit young but to confuse me with a kid whose dressing up as a soldier!? I was made fun of by my entier unit for a week after that event >.<;

• I don't really have any particularly GREAT memories of halloween. For examplle this year's festivities consisted of seeing Law Abiding Citizen (excellent flick btw) and introducing my dad to my plush Cthulhu. But I do have 2 memorably bad ones that I feel like sharing. I was about 14 or so. Too old to trick or treat, too young and unpopular to go to a real party. So me and a friend went to a really lame haunted trail in the woods outside of town. Our excuse for costumes? The Crow (Brandon Lee version) for him, Gene simmons from KISS for me. Facepaint only. Done THERE. By him. It was such a waste of time. Upon coming home and removing the facepaint, I find that Hellraiser 3 is just starting. I had never seen any of the Hellraiser movies before as my mom was a bit overprotective (though in hindsight I probably wouldn't let kids watch it either LOL). I started watching it (since she wasn't home from trick or treating with my little bro yet) and about 20 minutes in she gets home. She's willing to let me watch it but I have to keep the volume down becuz my Step-dad is sleeping. I try but the lousy drunk (who on a later halloween would get in an actual fist fight with my little bro and LOSE BADLY) kept waking up and getting pissed. so I couldn't finish it. It was another 7 or 8 years by the time I got to see it again. My other halloween story is also one of my earliest memories. I was a 4 year old dinosaur freak. I LOVED dinosaurs. I not only knew their actual names(Tyrannosaurus Rex, not T-Rex) I could SPELL their names. CORRECTLY I wanted to be a paleontologist when I grew up(I could spell that too. I know ADULTS who still can't spell that). I wanted to be a dinosaur. A Stegosaurus to be exact. I can't remember why. Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops were my favorites. Mom made me an awesome (if slightly bland, it was all one shade of green except the eyes and mouth) Stegosaurus costume. We went Trick or Treating and not a single person recognized what I was. If they recognized it as anything they thought I was a dragon. I distinctly remember screeching "Dragons have WINGS!!!!" at at least three people and ending the night a gibbering pile of tears because "people were so stupid"(I still kinda think that, I mean COME ON!) I did have slightly better luck with a lavender(never forgive my mom on the choice of color) Pteranodon. At least no one thought I was Big Bird. ROFLMAO

• Jesus... I knew I should have previewed that post before I posted it. Uh... you guys get the idea. M.

• I have fond memories of Halloween from my childhood. Well, I guess I should say that I have nostalgic memories of Halloween from my childhood. Being poor, I was always a hobo (way to set the bar, Mom) or one of those crappy plastic mask/vinyl suits with the character himself badly repro'd on the chest where the proper logo should be. That said, I still fucking LOVE Halloween. THAT said, my last few Halloweens have been fairly grim. My ex of 3 years broke up with me two Halloweens ago but our insane relationship extended for another year or so, thus sullying the holiday quite a bit for me. Furthermore, the last 3 Halloweens have seen me DJ'ing at the dive-ass strip club I work for. Zero party, far less money than on even my worst weeknight, and a mandatory costume for an even that no one even shows up to. This year, by far, has been the worst, though. A few months ago I specifically requested Halloween off. I was either going to attend a giant party or spend the night quietly drinking by myself and enjoying the atmosphere of the night at my house with some spooky music and good horror movies. Awesomely (read: not awesomely) my manager "forgot" to not schedule me and when I reminded him the other day, everyone he called to try to fill in for me had plans (imagine that). Begrudgingly, I took the shift. I get here and there's absolutely no one here except my good friend R who's already half in his cups. Furthermore, there's only one dancer, which means I'm making dick for tips tonight. Next, I'm informed that we have another dancer coming in, but she's some 41 year old plastic filled whore they recruited from the local escort mag, and on top of it, she's batshit insane. Luckily, she doesn't show up, but one of the crazier chicks from one of the "Lingerie Modelling" shops behind our club comes in and proceeds to go off her meds. Speaking of going off her meds, the ONE dancer on shift threatens to kill herself with anti-depressants, eats a handful of pills and starts going fucking loopy, not even listening to my announcements, staying on stage after I've called her off, going on stage when I haven't called her on stage and generally appearing to be wrecked out of her god damned gourd which isn't exactly how you make money when your whole schtick is getting naked and looking hot. Then, on top almost no one but stupid drunken weirdo's with zero money coming in for the whole night some asshole in an AC/DC shirt and mullet wig, accompanied by another idiot dressed as a stereotypical Mexican come in and try to pick fights with my bartender and I. The worst part? We could have closed early and I could have gone back to my house where there's now a ripping Halloween party that is sure to be over by the time I get home. Fuck this. M.

• Of course at the time I had no idea it would be the last door I would ever knock upon while be-crying 'trick or treat' to the residents. I was 14 years old and my conception of Halloween at this point was: dress up, knock on door, get candy. Wearing a simple plastic devil mask, I was armed with a half can of shaving cream and a small pouch of eggs just in case no treats were available. My comrades had made their way down the street ahead of me, having declared the house I discovered as a dud. The ground level door itself was located in a gangway between houses, a dark passage betwixt two warmly lit porches ascending to second floor entrance ways. With no artificial light sources between the two domiciles, and the sun having disappeared into the horizon hours before, it was an untouched goldmine by my calculations. A hidden untapped well of chocolates and similar treats, which would of course be poured freely into my stash bag because no one else had come to this place, and the people living here would be glad to give their excess candy away to the little boy who dared the passage way and cared enough to include them in the festivities. So I boldly pounded on the door and loudly declared 'trick or treat!'. My voice echoed hollowly in the bleak empty hall. A hushed whispering could now be heard from the other side of the door. I knocked again with a tinge of impatience; these people were holding out on me, and I was there to collect. 'Trick or treat!' I called out once again, though not quite as loud as before. The door opened a crack and an older gentleman of eastern decent peered through. "Yes?" he queried in broken english, "What do you want with us?". I presented my bag of candy, opening it toward the man. "Trick or Treat!". The man closed the door and a muttering arose from within. The door opened again, this time by a younger woman, though still a woman in her thirties. "Come in." she announced. Starting to feel a tad uncomfortable at this point, I made to leave. "Er, that's alright lady, I don't need any candy." I tried to back away. She reached out and grasped my arm, and gently tugged me inside. The home itself was a sparsely furnished basement dwelling with pretty much just the stove and counters that are a standard when renting such a place. There was a cheap linoleum dinner table in the middle of the room, around which sat an anciently old woman, the man who originally answered the door, and a younger boy who looked at me with terror in his eyes, I being an intruder into this stark reality. They sat around a candle and a bowl of fruit, each placed upon the table. The lady who had answered the door smiled at me. "You are here for Halloween, yes? Here, let me give you a treat.". She went to the fruit bowl and picked out an orange from the small quantity of fruit in the bowl. The man lashed out and grabbed her wrist while saying something gruffly in their mother tongue. "No, No." she admonished in english, "We are in America now. This is how they celebrate and so we must also.". The precious fruit was plopped into my bag on top of my candy. She then reached out and took my shoulder leading me back toward the door. "Happy Halloween young man." she smiled. And so I found myself once again in the darkened hall way, though the last few moments of time had changed my perceptions from that point on. I jogged back to the radiating street lights and caught up with my friends down the block. 'What ya' get" they asked. I looked down into my bag with a confused look on my face. "An orange.". "Don't eat it, it's probably got a razer blade in it." one of them ignorantly spat out.". "Come on, we still have to hit the next block.". I couldn't bring myself to do it. And never did again. Don't get me wrong, I love Halloween these decades later, with the costumes and candy for the kids, and all that comes with it, but a piece of my childhood died with that incident, and to this day I'm not sure if it was a good thing.

• Think about it. Other posts have drama and hope and dreams and sadness. But mine has a man getting hit in the groin with a pillowsack. I don't think there's any contest here.

• &#64; Kaoy You win. You just do. You get major props for costume effort, obscure nerdy reference, and humiliation endured. Cork-bedecked hats off to you, sir.

• I have no best or worst memory as it relates to costume wearing. My brother once hit in my in the balls with a pillowsack full of candy though. Ironically, it was actually my best Halloween moment, because got to mimic Hans Moleman from the Simpsons episode with "Man Getting Hit by Football:" "Oooooh, down I go." It works on so many levels.

• Not sure if I can tell if this is too much for ya, but boy, do I have a bit of doozy to tell of one year a few odd ago. Now, my mom has hardly ever let us go out on Halloween. She's seen the worst of it, in fact. Well, one year, when nearly all of us were well over the age of 16, save for a few young relatives, she gave in and let us go, so long as we stay together, stay on the lighted part of the street, and all... No problem, since my brother and cousin are skilled in Tae Kwon Do, and two in the group were an older cousin and his new wife. It went well actually. We had fun, laughed, got some good stuff, and even brought one of the dogs with a flower costume. No worriessince the cops were nearby with a news team for a later that night segment... They were down the block. Now here's the twist. Near the end, once back home (remodling too, so this house had a few holes, but no one bothered us during constuction), a guy I. The nieghborhood approached us under the assumption that my brother was his friend's long lost son. Just so you know, the guy was not only drunk, but a bipolar scitzophranic, if I spelled it right. Anyway, problems arised and this lead to mom, my brother, cousins and all the adults pretty much, trying to get him to leave while I was told to take the little guys (2, 7, and 9) and the dog to the bathroom, the sturdiest room by structure, close and lock the door and keep the lights off and stay quiet. Easier said than done... I'm known in my family as the weaker one physically, and the idea of keeping myself and three kids with a dog in the bathroom silent in complete darkness was tough enough without the 9 year old's terrible scenario predictions causing the 7 year old the nearly have a panic attack. To top that all off, our candy was left out of the room, so my plan to keep them quiet with gummy worms mom bought was shot down. And. The only light is a dying glowstick... Here's the kick here: the cops took an hour to drive a block down the street to say that the guy drunkenly kicking our door in can't be arrested because he didn't attack US. Yeah... So they'll only help if one of us is bleeding out or something... He came again, and still the same old bit. Anyway, I should also say that due to the guy's condition of being split personality, he didn't remember a thing the next day, and greeted us happily while we huddled together in the car. Appearently, that side we saw only comes out a little more than yearly, and he happened upon us during that... That being said, since he didn't and wouldn't know about that night under normal days, we couldn't hold it against him, since the underlying reason behind that night was that he thought he found his best friend's runaway son, and was simply (in his mind) trying to get him to make ammends and all. Really, what do you do with that? After all, aside from a month's worth of paranoia and a bit of a story to tell, he didn't cause much harm. He just wanted to talk... But he was still drunk, and yes, he still broke one of our old windows, the one leaning in the fence, with a rock. Maybe the cops should change their motto to "When Seconds Count... We'll Be There In Minutes."

• When I was in kindergarden and we were required to wear our costumes all day on Halloween, my mother had an elderly friend make a daisy costume for me to wear. While it was probably adorable to adults, the costume inspired nothing but ridicule and contempt from every child I met on Halloween, from classmates to Girl Scouts to older kids by the bus stop to feloow trick or treaters. The next year, inspired by my viewing of Clash of the Titans, I demanded the right to make my own costume. Using a pack of plastic snakes and a bedsheet, I made my own Medusa costume. I proudly spent that Halloween free of ridicule, knowing I had won back Halloween from my (admittedly well-meaning) mother.

• When I was in 7th, I went as Rincewind for Halloween. Two-thirds of you are thinking 'Oh, that is awesome' and the rest are thinking 'Who the hell is Rincewind?'. For the first two-thirds, yes it was. For remainder: What are you? Twelve? As it would happen, not many of your comrades-in-age know who he is, what a 'Disc World' is, and why Terry Pratchett is awesome. This is both my greatest AND most shameful Halloween memory. I had the most awesome and authentic Rincewind costume of any middle school student ever. This is possibly because the 4 weeks me and my mother spent together working on it and maybe because no other middle school student had ever heard of him. I even had The Luggage. A 1.5x3x2 ply wood box put on wheels and covered with some of that gaudy wood wall paper you see in old peoples basements and rec-centers. It even had stuffed baby socks hot glued to its bottom side and supported by pipe-cleaners so they didn't drag. And where do you think I kept my sugary haul that year? Some wimpy plastic bag? Hell no. I opened Luggages lid via pull cord hidden in the back so that folks could plop the candy into his waiting maul. 100%, free-range, hormone-free, Grade-A Kick Ass. 'How can that possibly be shameful?', you ask? Raise your hands if you knew about Disc World when you were twelve. Bookworms, look amongst the room and know where your friends are. With one fell swoop, I made it known that I was a huge geek. It was widely hypothesized at that point, what with my love of anime and my hate for Star Wars: Episode One. I had some good defense in my favour though. I was friends with our football teams quarter back. Most of my friends were girls. I had some nice ways of dressing myself that made the dressing code not seems so bad.* All those positives were instantly washed away by my sparkly-runed, pointy hat and matching robes(magic coloured, of course). Incidentally, I have never really dressed up for Halloween again. *-I went through hell for all those listed reasons once it was discovered that the aforementioned quarterback was gay, but thats a different story.

• This year, I decided to be Cyrano De Bergerac. He's a character I've always liked and dreamt of playing on stage someday. And with me coming off of a relationship whose biggest problem was a lack of communication... well, it just seemed ironically fitting. Sadly, long-nosed Romantic-era cavaliers aren't quite as popular or easily identified as Heath Ledger's Joker or "guy in Halo armor". So I got a lot of confused looks and one drunk middle-aged woman asking why the hell Pinocchio had a beard. So as I was finding a seat in the theater (I was at a Rocky Horror showing) and was sliding past a Magenta/Columbia pairing who I'm pretty sure wouldn't have had much use for a Riff Raff, I was surprised to feel a hand on my shoulder. I turned around to see a vision: a red-head goddess in a Princess Leia costume. THE Princess Leia costume. The Slave Leia Princess costume, complete with collar and leash. Make a long story short, Cyrano is her favorite play of all time. I quickly found out she was as big of a theater geek as me and that one of the local theaters she was with was getting ready to do auditions for Cyrano and she thought I'd be a shoe-in given how I talked about the play. So yeah... the one person who completely got my costume... and she's a gorgeous redhead who loves the stage who owns the sexiest geek girl costume of all time. And she gave me her number. WITHOUT ME ASKING FOR IT! I'm staying in tonight. I was going out again to a local club's costume contest. But I'm still feeling tired after being up all night last night. And somehow... I don't think tonight could possibly top last night, so there's no point me trying. :)

• Worst: When I was nine or so my parents decided I should dress up like a sexy clown. I had a rainbow wig, red nose, white make-up and four huge balloons under my shirt and in the ass of my pants to make me look, um, "voluptuous." And, that's not the worst part. I was trick -or- treating with my six year old brother, going up to houses while my parents would stand way back out on the street (long driveways). At one house there was a guy who told my brother and me to sit down with him on his front steps. I was a nice kid, so I sort of kneeled and played along. Then he started asking us our names, where we lived, where we went to school, all sort of things you should never ask a kid on Halloween while you've got alone in arm's length. And, my brother, who for some reason had not been scarred yet by out parents to be afraid or strangers, was answering all his questions! I didn't know what to say or do, so I ran as fast as I could with those damn balloons in my pants threatening to pop to get my mom. I was crying and scared and when I told her what happened she stomped right up that guy, told him off (she can be a real bitch) and grabbed my brother. I was so freaked out I couldn't enjoy the rest of the night for fear my brother had said too much and that guy would get me later.

• I am currently getting ready to watch 30 days of night and then rail on a girl dressed as Batgirl (and pulling it off ), so that would be the best ever

• This has to be in the best category. It was this years Halloween and I decided to be Martin Luther, the creator of the Lutheran church. Totally had full monks robe on, complete with hammer and the 95 theses. The best part about it, besides winning money and booze for the most creative costume, I also had a Catholic priest cross himself in front of me and then bow. As as Lutheran myself this was particularly awesome and is one of my best experiences to date.

• Worst: 1993, the year of "Knightfall" in the Batman comics. Batman being my favorite anyway, I dressed in one of those store-bought costumes with the mask that has the rubber band to keep it on your head. It was cold, so I wore a sweater as well. Somehow, I managed to overheat, get dizzy and almost pass out on the street. As I lay semi-conscious on the ground, I hear someone walk over to me and shout "BREAK YOU!" like Bane in the comics. Then he walked away. Thankfully, a neighbor noticed me sprawled out on the ground and helped me home. The worst part of the day isn't what I said so far. No, the worst is that I almost passed out a mere 15 minutes into trick-or-treating and my mom wouldn't let me go back out after I felt better. Worst candy load EVER. Best: Fifteen years later, I was writing for a financial newspaper. During the downtime, I entertained a cute young co-worker with mini-stories I wrote (just for her) in comic book-style about the adventures of our office-mates (for example, Bob breaks his ankle and has crutches, so I write "The New Adventures of Bob in the M*A*S*H ward). Invited my cute co-worker to a Halloween gathering with my friends and she accepted. I dressed in a La Parka luchador mask, coupled with a cheap replica of the WCW Heavyweight title, calling myself the Office Heavyweight Champion. She wore something that could be loosely interpreted as "one of Charle's Angels." She apologized many times for not having an *actual* costume. At one point in the night, she and I were alone and I started feeling overheated from the mask. Started fumbling with the shoelaces on the back of the mask to get it untied and off my head. She said, "Let me help you with that" and proceeded to help me take it off. With the mask removed, I said "ahh" while taking a deep breath of fresh air; at that moment she kissed me. We "helped" each other with our costumes for the rest of the night.

• Best: Ben Cooper Jaws costume 1977... nuff said. Worst: Ben Cooper Babar the fuckin' ELEPHANT 1976. Really an ELEPHANT? Come on MOM and DAD...Ben Cooper DEVIL would of KICKED ASS, but an ELEPHANT????? WORST!

• Best Halloween moment actually happened about ten minutes ago. I decided to be the Phantom of the Opera this year, and I happen to know a lot of people in the theatre department here, so this girl I know did an absolutely fantastic makeup job, like realistic burning and flesh falling off and everything. I'm walking back to my dorm and lo and behold there's a 5 year old girl there with her mom waiting to pick someone up, and she sees me sans mask and screams and jumps into the car. Sorry small child!

• The year was 1983, and I decided for some reason that I would dress up as a terrorist for Halloween. I was obsessed with ninja movies and Rambo, and I thought it would be pretty cool. I had my Larami brand Uzi squirtgun (back then, they looked pretty real except for the orange tip, which I had colored black inexpertly with a Sharpie). I finished out the outfit with a black ski mask and some black boots. I was 12, and I had no idea that people would think it was wrong in those more innocent, pre-9/11 times. I was wrong. After hitting about 30 houses and looking threatening, but getting my fair share of candy from people who realized I was just a kid out trick or treating, I saw flashing red and blue lights behind me. I was thrown to the ground, frisked, and cuffed, and put in the back of police car. The police were not amused when I explained to them that it was just a squirtgun, and it was Halloween fer chrissake! It's not like I lived in a city, just a sleepy suburb, but they apparently thought that it was the Invasion of Buffalo Grove, and they were freakin' Chuck Norris. I was taken to the police station, hysterical and crying, and sat in handcuffs next to skeevy looking adults while they called my Mom to come pick me up. They confiscated my Uzi, my ski mask and my candy, and I never got them back. They didn't have to take my candy! My mom grounded me for three months for being so stupid, and I never got one of those cool squirtguns again, since they stopped making them the year after. Tim "toy geek"

• This is a true story and please, it is not meant to offend anyone. Nor was it meant to upset people when it happened. If a picture can be found to show proof, I will email it to TR. My friend is Iranian; although, many people think he is Italian because of his facial features and hair. He is probably the funniest person I have ever met in my life. Unfortunately, his humor is often bizarre and many people find it to be offensive. This story is in fact, one of those times. I think we were in 11th grade, 10th at the earliest. I do not remember what I was for Halloween, but I will forever always remember what my friend dressed as; Adolf Hitler. Mustache. Hair. Grey Suit. Arm Band. Every detail was perfect. This was meant to be a joke, a spoof if you will; but as you could probably guess, 99% of the houses we visited did not find my friend's costume amusing. Every other house we visited either slammed the door in our faces or lectured us. One particular house though made the night worth every bit of uncomfortable-ness and embarrassment. A small house, obviously very old, in a newer development, was one of our last stops. We were greeted by a very old woman, old enough that I can say right now she has probably passed on. The woman handed us candy, barely making eye contact. She did not speak until she laid her eyes on Adolf. When she did, her posture straightened and her face hardened. She looked directly at Adolf and spoke her native German tongue. She extended her right arm in standard Nazi salute, proclaimed Sieg Hail, and shut the door in our face. Eleven years later, the memory of the costume and that woman have lived in infamy among my friends.

• My worst, in the sense that it was nerdery gone tragically wrong. We were encouraged to dress up for high school and sophomores got sci-fi as a theme. I wanted to go as something Star Trek, but didn't want something too easy like a Vulcan, oh no. ST IV was recently out on video, and one of the ambassadors to Earth was Andorian. Cool, I thought. I can use the uniform *and* be an alien. So I got my mom to dutifully recreate the uniform from the video while I worked on the makeup, hair, and antennae. I sewed the wig myself from white fake fur. I made the right shade of blue greasepaint. And, I sculpted antennae from some extra Masters of the Universe parts -- Skeletor arms and Teela shields. I accessorized with pins and medals from around the house, and I thought it looked great. Of course, nobody got it. Worse, a good number of people recognized the uniform, but wondered why there was a Smurf in Starfleet. Those who didn't recognize the uniform wanted to know how a Smurf was sci-fi. Pointing at the hair (not hat) and antennae (which Smurfs do not have) only led to questions as to what was wrong with my Smurf. Though mortified, I knew that one of my friends, a self-identified Trekker ("*don't* call me a Trekkie") would appreciate it. Well, he did, sort of, in his own way... "There's something wrong with your uniform. It's backwards! And the collar's not right. Does the lapel fold down? No? Well it's supposed to. What are those pins? They're not Starfleet. Andorians are a lighter blue and their antennae are thinner." And it just got worse from there. The most inglorious fate of all: to be nitpicked to death by another nerd. It was "backwards" of course since my mom designed it from the video and made a mirror image. I thought she did a great job, and we were never going for 100% accuracy. I did learn: always go as something recognizable. Also, people are less likely to criticize Klingons.

• Dammit. My mom made me an astronaut costume back in the day, like in the early '70s. I of course had to wear it before Halloween. And of course, I managed to tear the seat and back of the damned jumpsuit (which was like bright blue). But at least it didn't show my underwear. So, my mom put a sign on the back "NASA NEEDS FUNDS, PLEASE HELP". And every goddamned adult laughed their ass off about it. God, what a great memory, summabitch! Where was Micheal Myers when I needed him?!

• Worst. Always Worst. I was ten years old and dressed as Tom Baker's Doctor Who. It was the annual Halloween bash at the Elk's lodge so my odds of being mocked for my PBS friendly costume were pretty low. What I remember of the party was fantastic. Costumes, contests and games -- one of which was bobbing for apples from a large metal washtub. It's my turn to bob. I step forward and I hit a puddle on the floor. I topple forward into the metal tub and in the process crush my windpipe on the rim. My next real memory is of the week before Christmas. I remember bits and pieces of being in the hospital but not much of the details. To this day I do still have the trace of the scar from a tracheotomy. I had to make up all my schoolwork over the course of Christmas break so I wouldn't be held back a grade. The Halloween accident pretty much killed two of my favorite holidays in one windpipe crushing move. In a weird way I owe Doctor Who my life. I was told that the giant Tom Baker scarf had padded a lot of the impact and kept my spine intact.

• I am currently sitting at work, dressed as my boss for Halloween. That means grayed hair, gray moustache, polo shirt, and too-short khaki shorts. My boss is in his sixties and wears these regularly, and he is not a skinny man. Not only did my boss enjoy the costume, he gave me his badge to wear for the day. I am twenty-four years old. I work for a state government facility. I have enough time to check TR comments at work. Free candy. Best Halloween of my life. ~W.H.

• This is the last time I went trick or treating so I must have been about 14 or so. A small piece of background information before I tell my story. I have a glass eye. So my friends and I go to this house and the man handing out candy says "Well, there's your treat where is my trick?" So me being the smartass teen I am I say "OK mister", and take my eye out. The guy freaks out and knocks my eye out of my hand. The eye goes flying and I say "Jesus Christ mister why the hell did you do that? My father is going to effin kill me! You gotta help me find my eye!"So the guy his wife my friends and I start crawling around in his lawn and bushes for about 10 minutes till his wife cries out found it!" So they give me my eye let me use their bathroom to clean it off and my friends and I head off on our merry way.

• Back in highschool, our Magic the Gathering club (we were nerds sanctioned by the student body) decided that we absolutely had to do something Monty Python related. We didn't know what Python characters we wanted to be, but there was 6 of us and we had almost no money between all of us. What we settled on was the line of monks who chant in Latin and slam boards against their heads. One of the 6 of us had a job at a pizza parlor and stole some pizza boxes, which we painted brown and decorated with Germanic runes painted in black. We each had to make our brown robes, which turned out loose and fantastic. Even the hoods all stooped down to the tips of our noses so we could see without being seen. It was perfect. When the time came to go out and trick or treat, we at first just walked down the street and chanted without going to any houses. After a while however, we didn't want the night to go to waste as just a joke to a handful of grown-ups escorting their kids. We would walk up to each house, chant a line or two, remove our hoods and open up our pizza boxes to receive candy. After an hour or so, we had a pizza box stuffed with candy and slightly swollen foreheads. We didn't realize that hitting yourself in the face with a pizza box loaded with candy would leave huge welts and leave some paint flakes from the boxes on our faces. The only hitch all night was as we were walking up to a house, someone from some bushes threw firecrackers at us and freaked us out. We ran away and didn't look back; we were nerds and knew how to avoid trouble but not deal with it. Sadly, we were stopped by the cops. Someone reported a group of hooded teens in the area who were throwing firecrackers at people and exploding mail boxes. We were last seen fleeing the scene from exploding firecrackers. To make matters worse, our faces were beaten rather roughly because of the boxes and we had a lot of paint flakes on our faces. The grand Python plan ended in failed explanations of "you've got the wrong guy!" and after another squad car had pulled up and we each had removed the robes, spilled out our candy so they could search it, and sat on the curb while we were patted down, we were finally let go. After I finally got home, around 11, I walked in the door to find my dad waiting. A neighbor saw us with the cops and told him we did something wrong. All of our faces are red and puffy from hitting ourselves all night with boxes that got incrementally heavier and the paint made it look like cuts from a distance. My dad wanted to know who I had been fighting with and I tried to explain to him about Monty Python and the monks and the firecrackers and the cops. He was having none of it and sent me to my room. I had dressed up for a joke that ended with me beaten in the face, no candy to speak of after the cops dumped it, and I was grounded for a week because I was being accused of crimes I never did commit. At least we didn't get arrested, but it was still one of the worst nights of my life.

• Best: Last year, the girl I had been dating for about a month at that point and I attended the biggest Underground/Industry/Fetish/Halloween party in NYC, decked out as the living dead, this party also featured a live performance from Re-Penetrator (Lovecraft geeks, go look it up). It was also the night said girl and I told each other we loved each other for the first time. Worst: This year. After 6 months, a new house, and all the trials and tribulations of a relationship, she breaks up with me in March, over IM and the phone, on what would have been our anniversary, through no fault of my own I may add. As a result, I can no longer enjoy this holiday on the same level I once did. :(

• Well this happened to a friend, but I was a witness: We were at a halloween party and my friend was in an awesome ghostbuster costume that he made himself, it was the best costume in the party so we were sure that he was going to win. At the end he was defeated by a guy in a crappy "Tamal" outfit, wich is a typical Colombian food: http://www.tucocinaytu.com/files/tamal%20del%20litoral.jpg ...It was a very sad day for every ghostbuster lover in the planet

• Okay, so my best halloween story involves absoloutely no trick or treating and very little candy, but much caffineited soda and much Nerdly fun. Our little gang of miscreants had reached the point in the teenage years where you really can't pull off trick or treating any more, so instead we decided to have an all night "Call of Cthulu" RPG out at the GM's parents house. This was on a farm so far from any sort of civilization they think electric lights are a new invention, and kids that play RPG's really need a visit with some holy water and a priest etc. To get into the character of the game, we all donned cheap (and really lame) costumes, and speak in really bad accents. Around three AM, the game ended with only two survivors (one of whom was insane...Gotta love Cthulu). We troop outside for a smoke break, and freak ourselves into believing we hear wolves and a womans scream in the neighbouring corn fields. To this day, I don't know what we were thinking but we decided to go explore the fields, scared absoloutely spitless and all trying to act brave. After about twenty minutes we ended up heading back to the house (in the pitch dark), back to back, making solemn vows that when the wolves come for us we won't leave anyone behind and bravely brandishing our weapons (a plastic bat, a BB gun with no BB's, and a shovel they used to scoop up dog poop) at the creeping dark around us. The whole of our high school may have looked down at us for being skinny geeks and freaks, but we knew deep inside that we were MEN and had faced down wolves and shambling things one cold dark night at the dawn of November. It made the date less nights and daily ostrazization a little more palatable.

• Sadly, they don't realy celebrate halloween in the scandinavian country I live in. But I have a story about costumes and shame that very well could have been a halloween story. Every year, my school would celebrate it's anniversary where everyone went to school in a costume. When I was in first grade, the theme for the costumes were 'what do I want to be when I grow up?'. I didn't knew what I wanted to be at that age, so I asked my mom to help me with my costume. Bad idea. My mother thought the theme was boring and, as the big Tolkien fan she was, dressed me up as a dragon. All the other kids came as sportsmen and moviestars. I was a dragon. It didn't even help to take of the dragon costume, that only made me look like a hobo with a dragon's head under his arm. I didn't knew what I wanted to be when I grew up back then, but I didn't want to become a dragonslaying hobo. :( I hope this counts as the worst halloween story, since it didn't even include the holyday in the story. That's really bad storywise, or should I say... worst? :)

• It's Halloween of '98 and I've allowed my painfully lame friends Matt and Alex to trick or treat with me this year. They both show up as Harry Potter. However, Matt's mom has sprung for the official costume with the Hogwart's insignia on the robe while Alex is wearing a blue, pointy, fleece cap with rainbow stars and moons, and a matching cape. His wand is a stick from his yard and he's wearing gloves and winter boots. Matt already had his own pair of nerdy glasses, Alex's are painted on his face with make-up. Upon arriving at my house, my father bluntly asks what the hell Alex is supposed to be. "I'm Harry Potter!" "Oh, you look like one of those Peruvian goat-herders." (Reference picture linked in my tag.) Combined with the sheer pointedness of his sad, fleece hat and winter gear we took to calling his costume: "A Peruvian goat-herding gnome wizard from Alaska." We introduced him this way at every house we went to. By the end of the night, he was dejectedly referring to himself as such when people asked what he was. Me, Matt and all my girlfriends called him this at school for weeks. These have turned into my friend Matt's best/worst Halloween's somehow. Because, like all group of young, nerdy friends: we are ashamed of being associated with such lame, nerdy people. Matt didn't suffer Alex lightly, and his costume win delighted him to no end.

• Oh the greatest one will have to be when I was in Kuwait back in either 95 or 94, because Kuwait dose not really celebrate Halloween my parents and some of the other parents decided to celebrate Halloween at the embassy were they work so their kids wouldn't miss the holiday. Now they way they set it up was to actually make it a haunted house and have all of them were costumes. The parents would hide in certain place dressed as ghosts,men in gas masks, witches and we would get candy every time they pop out. They has smog machines, recordings of scary sounds and every time we stop somewhere they would try to spook us out it was a blast, then to cap the night out we go to the theater(The embassy had a lot of places to relax at) to watch a movie, Batman Mask of the Phantasm, which while it's more a noir movie, the Phantasm was just freaky enough to be really scary when you're a kid and the parents actually really got into the movie as well. So we got a cool haunted house, candy, and saw Mask of The Phantasm it's still on of my favorite Halloween moments.

• I did not exaclty make candy forts but I did something similair. When I got home after trick or treating I would sort out all of my candy and build a candy village. There was a reeses house and a butterfinger house and pretty much every type of candy or bar that I had enough of got a house built out of it in the candy village. Then over the next few days the candy village and all of its houses would shrink until nothing was left.

• It was Halloween of '97, I was ten and I was Batgirl! I was stoked too, because it was the first year my tantrums finally convinced my mom to put the hotglue gun away and just buy me the damn costume. I was out with my girl friends trick or treating when I hear someone calling me from the other side of the street: It is Matt, the bratty, chubby, flamboyant and dorky kid who I've been embarrassed to call a best friend for 19 years now. And, prepare for a bitter harvest, he's dressed as Robin. Obviously, I ignore him. He keeps shouting my name and as he's running towards me, but trips over the curb and falls into a mammoth pile of leaves. My girlfriends and I scramble. He tells me the next day at school that he had to go home after tripping because he ripped a hole in his Robin suit. I denied ever having seen him that night.

• Holy shit, after quickly skimming over this entry I didn't notice any initial typos. Try to make it a trend.

• Worst Halloween memory?... Jesus H... The time I explained to my impressionable, sweet innocent little cousin that Halloween was a pagan holiday. You know, Satan running around and other freaky shit... he was on the verge of tears... what's worse is that he has diabetes, so, not be able to do much trick-or-treating, he couldn't even enjoy hanging out in his adorable ( yes, I said adorable) gourd costume with the threat of unknowable terrors from hell looming over him. I didn't think he'd take it so hard. Honestly, he's pretty acerbic for a five year old. I thought he'd get the... you know... yeah, I know, I'm a huge fucking idiot. Sorry. The violence of my youth is self-perpetuating, it seems, not to sound to pretentious or anything... (sigh)...

• Best: With an ice storm raging outside, my brother and I are bummed because we can't trick-or-treat. Instead, my parents rent three Hitchcock movies and we open the bags of candy we were going to give out. It was the coziest, most chocolaty, Hitchcockinest Halloween ever. Worst: One Halloween, my grade school tried to combat "offensive" Halloween costumes by forcing all of us to dress as hobos. HOBOS. Imagine it: an entire grade school full of sullen, oppressed children in ripped, secondhand clothing and sponged "beards." That was the beginning of the end, I think.

• No contribution yet, but I just want to say: Sonya, your Batman/Minnie Mouse story is possibly the greatest thing ever! Just imagining that photo of you all pissed off in class makes me giggle.

• Alrighty, I have quite a few best memories when it comes down to Halloween. Mostly they stem from working a couple of haunted houses. So I'll stick with that. Working a haunted house is awesome. I loved jumping out and scaring people. The looks on peoples faces were priceless. It didn't even pay I just enjoyed doing it. Even when people would come in drunk and take a swing at me I still enjoyed it. Now my worst memory probably comes from when I was a Junior in high school. I had just started a new school at the beginning of the year, and I was finally sort of starting to fit in. I had helped plan a Halloween party. Got decorations in line. Convinced the teachers to let us wear costumes in class. Helped get the okay to do a little Halloween dance. I had all the preparation done, had my costume ready and picked out. Then I got some horrible news, My grandmother had just passed on. Suffice to say I was devastated. So I didn't go to school the entire last week of October. So others enjoyed my planning but a personal tragedy kept me from attending. That has been my worst halloween to date.

• The greatest memory I have of Halloween came just a few years ago, when I was 22 or 23. I had dressed up as my favorite Batman villain, Two-Face. I had the face paint and the hair down, I looked good. So, I went out to the bar with some friends. About an hour into the night, I went up to the bar to grab a drink. As I'm waiting, I look to my right and who do I see? Catwoman. Then I looked over to my left. Joker. Batman's rogues gallery had gathered together at a bar in Cortland, NY on Halloween night. Good times.

• I don't know which category to include this in. You be the judge... Ah, the mid 'ninties, brought my adolescence and raving - that is, of the drug-addled all night dance party variety. There was a Halloween themed rave, so I decided to dress up as a 'scary clown'. (I liked dressing up, having spent much of my even younger years LARPing, for which you can't make fun of me, because I was 13). I had a onesy clown outfit, bright red doc martins two sizes too large, white gloves, a green wig, facepaint - the whole bit. What set my clown apart were the delightfully odd, large fake teeth, and fake eyeballs that I put in. The eyes were silly dollar store things, little plastic white things you stuck in your eye socket like a monocle - but the effect was pretty eerie. I sold the costume by flailing around the rave like a marionette, and grinning and leering creepily. I defend myself by saying that doing this kind of this is what being young is for. On my way through the evening, a girl tentatively approached me, and stared, wide-eyed at my face. She appeared to be trippin' balls. "Wheeere aaare yooour eeeyes?" she said to me, a little warily. I didn't 'drop character' as it were, I just hung from my strings, grinned more at her, and offered her a lollipop. She welled up courage for a moment, grabbed and held onto my arm, then let go and ran away with her head shaking. I was delighted by this, thinking that I was so otherworldly that she just had to make sure I was real. Years later, the story is recounted to me by someone who knew the girl. I guess she was tripping pretty hard on acid at the time, and I was, indeed, freaking her out. Only, when she grabbed my arm, she felt just a dry bone under my costume, and not a human arm at all, which sent her spiraling a teeny bit closer to the land of the loonies for a time that night. For my 2nd entry, I offer just a few photos from last halloween, when being on tour with a puppet show found me in the middle of South Carolina with an hour in a goodwill to prepare for the evening. I was kind of a hit at the bar: http://www.flickr.com/photos/44172181@N05/sets/72157622700971472/

• Mike and I walked into the party looking for our friends. It was a dry and windy Halloween at a large house overlooking an empty field in the middle of nowhere. Our arrival was met with a score of unintelligible greetings from about a hundred people. Intoxicated vampires... slutty Disney characters... a shirtless ninja... a girl dressed like Jesus... "This is going to be a good one," I said to Mike. "I don't know," he replied, dodging out of the way as one of the vampires tried to bite him, "It's only fun for so long watching other people get drunk." It did feel extremely out of place, not having costumes ourselves. I'd spent all my time and resources making a Harley-Quinn costume for a friend of mine, and neglected to make a costume for myself. My regret instantly vanished however, when Harley, in full, glorious real-life, bounded up and threw her arms around me. I stammered. I'd made the costume, but hadn't seen her wear it yet. "Hi Puddin'.." she cooed softly in my ear. I nearly fainted, thinking out loud that I'd died and gone to nerd heaven. She laughed and I caught a whiff of rum. "You're drunk already too?" I asked in disbelief. "Yup, my sister's bar-tending," she grinned. A short time later, Mike and I sat by the pool attempting conversation with the Jesus-girl and a pair of cats. We were beginning to get a bit irritated by the fact that all of our friends at the party that we came to see were already too drunk to talk to. -Just a brief bit of advice: never leave a Russian girl to mix drinks unattended with a healthy stock of Everclear (that drink should come with bail-money) It was then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Harley in the distance ducking back into the house. Appearing to be the only ones who noticed, Mike and I followed after. We found her in the kitchen crying quietly. "What's wrong?" She had no answer, but it became clear that the weight of the world was pressing down extra hard, as alcohol often causes it to do. So the two of us, and another one of her girl friends walked her into the coat room, shut the door, and had her lie down on the bed, where she promptly passed out. Fearing the nature of the party's indigenous population, (and the fact that there was no lock on the door) the three of us decided to stand guard. Within minutes the friend had followed Harley into unconsciousness, snoring, and sort of half hanging off the foot of the bed. Mike and I sat on the floor, our backs to the bed, facing the door. After a while our conversation began to slow, as we felt drowsiness creeping up on us. As we teetered on the edge of being asleep, the girl dressed as Jesus flung open the door. She hadn't expected that there would be anyone in the room, and Mike, and I had been shocked awake by this person before us, bursting in so suddenly. All three of us exclaimed in unison: "JESUS!"

• My cousin and I used to plan an elaborate pranks when trick-or-treaters came by our grandparents' house. One year, we lit their backyard (which was visible from the road) just so much that you could see a person, but not much detail. Then when the kids came by, I would run out of the house dressed as Death, and my cousin would have a fake head on his shoulders, running from me and screaming his lungs out. Then I'd cut off his "head" with my sickle, causing fake blood to rocket out of the empty space. The children ran before they even got their candy.

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