In the spirit of this spooky season, WSN’s staff decided to give their rants a twist by going off on Halloween
On the “Boorito”
By Melanie Pineda, Deputy Opinion Editor
The year is 2015. You’re in your senior year of high school and you’ve just learned about Chipotle’s Boorito special, where burritos are only $3 on Halloween if you dress up. You and your friends are excited and wear silly masks as you bask in the joys of cheap but delicious food. Fast forward to 2018, where Donald Trump is president and said burritos are now $4 on Halloween. Life truly is a joke.
On Candy Corn
By Yasmin Gulec, Under the Arch Editor
I grew up in Istanbul where the only introduction I had to candy corn was in American movies and Disney Channel. I spent years wondering what it tastes like, imagining a hard candy that tastes fruity. When I came to New York for college I had the opportunity to try it and I was very disappointed. First of all, why is it weirdly soft. Second of all, out of all the sugary things that exist in America, how can candy corn be the face of Halloween? Let’s fix this, please and thank you.
On Expectations
By Hanna Khosravi, Deputy Opinion Editor
Halloween is the new New Year’s Eve. Or the new Valentine’s Day. Or whatever other holiday is always glorified in our minds as a time devoted explicitly to having fun that never actually turns out as fun as we want it to be. There’s so much pressure on the weekend before Halloween — and the weekend after, if you’re really hard-core — to have the time of your life. I met people over the weekend who had no plans and actually paid over $100 each last minute for entrance to an obscure rave in Brooklyn. But why, I ask? Is a legendary experience worth the bludgeoning of your pride? Sure, I’ve had great Halloweens before, and I’ll always remember them! But sometimes, if nothing is crystallizing, it’s okay to sit back with some pals, rent “The Shining,” eat all the pink Starburst you can find and reminisce about the days when you would have gotten that candy for free instead of having to buy it for yourself at the 24-hour pharmacy next door.
On Decorations
By Janice Lee, Opinion Editor
Why does everyone have to go so hard with Halloween decorations? Today, I saw a storefront that had a plastic baby with this horrifying make up hanging from a string, and all of last year, when I lived in West Village, there was a life-size model of Beetlejuice outside this apartment building, which honestly freaked me out every time I’d walk by it. I get cobwebs and plastic spiders and of course, I don’t hate a good pumpkin, but I’d really like to feel peace when I walk in this already anxiety-inducing city. Call me a Halloween hater if you want, but I could really pass on the decorations because we all know what the best part of Halloween really is — the candy your professors hand out for free.
On a Really Bad Slice of Pumpkin Pie
By Pamela Jew, Under the Arch Managing Editor
Pumpkin pie has been my longest food love. It’s pretty hard to mess pumpkin pie up. To get into the pie season, I’ve been frequenting a nearby pie shop. Pie shops should be meccas of pie — pumpkin pie included. This pie shop — whose name I withhold for their own good — has probably cooked up thousands of pumpkin pies at this point. I picked up a slice early last week, and the woman at the counter told me, “it’s a custard pie.” No mind to her comment, I bought it and skipped home. Sitting on the floor of my room, I took the first bite, and that’s when I knew my grave mistake. My mouth filled with an eggy custard flavor with a sprinkle of pumpkin. That not-so-developed chicken spawn overpowered the precious pumpkin. I had paid $6 for it, so I had to clean my dish. After warning multiple people at the office not to make the same mistake as me, I now beg the public for new pie shops as mine has been tainted. Or just send me a whole pumpkin pie.
On Good Costumes
By Jemima McEvoy, Editor-in-Chief
The best and worst part of Halloween is the pressure to have a good costume. If you do it well, you feel fantastic — for a night, you are a completely different person. But if you’re like me and leave everything to the last minute, it becomes one huge stressful mess. Every year without fail, I start to think about my Halloween costume a few months ahead of time, and then as Oct. 31 rolls around, I completely forget to follow through. I find myself trying to throw together any semblance of a costume from the junk in my room the morning of Halloween, feeling as though I can’t show my face if I don’t have something semi-witty or semi-scary. My request is if you see someone in cat ears or an all-black outfit, don’t judge. Maybe they didn’t want to fork out $30 for one night or, like me, they just annually drop the ball.
On New York City Halloween as a Whole
By Alejandro Villa Vásquez, Deputy Managing Editor
I want to be a sexy cat for Halloween, or maybe a sexy nun. Have you ever tried going out in late fall weather wearing nothing but a mini-skirt and fishnet stockings? You’ll die of hypothermia before you even get to the pregame. If it weren’t bad enough that the temperature starts dipping below 50 degrees, the wind gusts make it impossible to keep your perfectly-styled hair in place. I mourn all the skimpy clergyman outfits that could have been had I gone to college somewhere that actually has hospitable weather in October. I’m thinking Halloween 2019 in Miami.
Opinions expressed on the editorial pages are not necessarily those of WSN, and our publication of opinions is not an endorsement of them.
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