Quick and Easy costumes can be a lot of fun to wear. Think about chaning your persona to give it a twist.

The nerd or geek costume is easy to do. If you wear glasses, tape one or both of the hinges with masking tape. If not, find some cheap fake glasses at a store on the way to work or school. Get a white long-sleeve shirt that you don't care about (try Goodwill) and a marker or other felt-tip pen. Put the pen, open, in the shirt pocket and allow the ink to stain the shirt. Load the pocket with as many different pens and pencils as will fit. If you can find a 6-inch ruler to put in the pocket, you get extra credit! Put on white socks, scuffed shoes (or tennies) and high-water pants. If you don't have any high-water pants were several inches of the socks will show, simply roll up the pants you do have to create the effect. Hang as many calculators as you can find on your belt. Extra credit if you can find a slide rule to hang on your belt. Finally, if you have or can find suspenders (braces in England) that don't match anything else you are wearing, all the better!

If that is all too complicated, you can make a Funny Face by using whatever makeup you can lay your hands on. Put on too much lipstick, put rouge on you cheeks but don't smooth it in very well, exagerate your eyebrows with mascara. etc. If you can fix your hair in an unuaual way, perhaps making it spike strangely you are good to go.

If you have a Funny Hat or Funny Glasses they may be all you need to go out proudly on Halloween.

A Halloween costume that is aimplicity itself is mismatched clothes and shoes. Find a shirt that clash horribly with a pair or pants or a skirt, wear two different color socks and two different shoes. If you put this together creatively and also comb your hair funny, you may win a costume contest. I saw one guy (not on Halloween) dressed in two different plaids - plaid pants and a different, completely mismatched plaid shirt. Think in those terms and you will be well prepared for Halloween.

You could be a bum for Halloween simply by not shaving for a couple of days if you are a man, or lightly smearing some brown makeup to make 5-o'clock shadow for a woman or child. Put on ragged, mismatched clothes (a trip to a thrift store such as Goodwill may be needed.) The bums where I live in California tend to wear many layers of chothes. You may want to try for that look if where you live isn't too warm. Remember - nothing should match!

Of course, going as a Ghost is the old standby if you can't think of anything else. Just find a bed sheet that is big enough and cut holes for the eyes and mouth. The challenge of this costume is keeping the sheet in place. One way to do it is to gather it around your wrists or cut arm holes. If you cut arm holes, I suggest wearing something white on your arms.

Cousin It from the Addams Family TV show is one of the easiest costumes to do. You will need two or three grass skirts (depending on how tall you are), sun glasses and a bowler hat. If you've never seen the TV show, Cousin It is completely covered with long hair. The grass skirts, which should be brown, become the hair. Put one at the top of your head and the other one or two skirts down your body so you are completely covered. Finish with the sun glasses and hat and you are ready to go.