Recently on Andover campus, students have been outraged. Again. In fact, some students have been driven to the point of madness. What is this terrible, First Amendment-violating rule, you may ask? Brace yourselves, because it’s spookier than I even expected: No inappropriately inaccurate costumes are permitted at the Halloween dance. Ever since the year 1966, faculty chaperones have been complaining about how horribly put-together some students’ costumes are. One biology teacher claims that she once saw a girl wearing a kitty cat costume that consisted entirely of a truncated black tank top, leggings and a taped-on tail. She even forgot the ears. The teacher was horribly offended by the lack of ears and yelled, “Did you learn nothing from Bio 100?!” Another teacher, this time from the History Department, was alarmed by the inaccuracy of an Upper’s knight costume. The costume had been hastily constructed out of cardboard and was clearly covered with a self-applied layer of silver spray paint. While the teacher appreciated the student’s effort, he was appalled by the execution of the entire get-up. He exclaimed, “Your breastplate and vambraces are grinding together! How are you supposed to fight like a real knight?” The administration confiscated the student’s costume and immediately suspended him for the rest of the school year. It seems that the administration has really rubbed the students the wrong way, so Features has decided to conduct a survey. Of those surveyed, 47 percent think that an appropriate costume is one that covers at most 15 percent of the subject’s factual accuracy and is at least 31 percent accurate for those 15 percent of accuracies. I know it’s confusing. The next 39 percent know that a good costume has a somewhat recognizable central idea or theme and isn’t too serious. Only 13 percent of the students surveyed think that an appropriate costume is serious and shows a lack of a social life. The remaining 1 percent of surveyed students told us that they won’t be attending the dance since they have to finish their Math-695 problem set. The penalty for inappropriately showing up to the dance in an inaccurate costume includes dismissal from the dance, probation and a possible suspension (depending on the severity of the offense). But don’t let that dissuade you from attending in your best costume (I’m lookin’ at you, cowgirls, cowboys, astronauts and Abe Lincolns [who must now wear authentic wooden teeth if they wish to avoid punishment])!
