This is one of the many articles in the Mercury’s 2026 Halloween Issue. Find a print copy here, subscribe to get a copy mailed to you here, and if you’re feeling generous and want to keep these types of articles coming, support us here.—eds.

For many of us, Halloween season is the candy-coated prize at the end of the humid trudge of summer. For others, Halloween is simply a chance to be someone else. A reprieve from the wretched banality of self. And while it’s easy to assume that everyone in Portland is an autumn-loving, witchy, horror fanatic, I am also aware there are those who carry a deep anxiety around the holiday. Spooking season can get competitive in a town with more goth bars than public pools. If you are stricken with decision paralysis or just too damn broke to afford the cosplay of your dreams, allow me to set your mind at ease. Here are eight costume ideas that can be put together with common household items that are guaranteed to impress:

  1. David Foster Wallace. Make a wig out of a mop head and attach it to your head with a white bandana. Make frameless glasses out of Pringles lids and pair it with a denim shirt and white jeans. Afraid someone’s going to call you out on not being familiar with his body of work? Don’t worry, no one’s actually ever finished a DFW novel. The world record for completion of Infinite Jest is 73 percent, and that guy died. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s an “Emperor’s New Clothes” situation. The last 20 pages of that book are blank and no one wants to admit to not “getting it.” 
  1. A pacific lamprey. Get completely naked and tie a circular saw blade to your face. Have fun while educating fellow party guests about Oregon’s most charming anadromous parasitic sea organism! This one’s a great conversation starter for folks looking to hook up over the holiday weekend. Nothing gets a potential lover horny like a nuanced understanding of the fecundity of regional Petromyzontidae species. 
  1. Lieutenant Dane Dumars. Matt Damon’s character from the summer blockbuster we all loved and can’t stop talking about: The Rip (fair warning, this costume will be popular). We all saw The Rip, right? Matt Damon is set to make a big comeback after this one, it’s a shame he isn’t in anything else this year. Make a bullet proof vest out of two baking sheets and shave your boyfriend’s beard off while he’s asleep to make a facial merkin.
  1. An ant hill. Cover yourself in honey and lie motionless on your kitchen floor for the two days leading up to Halloween. Once you’re thoroughly covered in carpenter ants, all that’s left to do is toss on a few fistfuls of sand to complete the look. If you don’t have any sand handy, a couple cups of cinnamon or kitty litter should do the trick. 
  1. A data center. Paint a refrigerator box bomb shelter beige and cut holes for your arms and face. Be the loudest person at the party and smoke cigarettes inside. Every time you encounter someone enjoying a beverage, snatch it from their hands and chug it, then loudly complain that you’re still thirsty. 
  1.  A pint of Salt and Straw ice cream. Dress in all white with a red belt and a red hat. Go into your kitchen and pick any two random items to carry around all night, this will be your flavor. The more disparate and esoteric the culinary pairing, the better. Peanut butter and green tea, tuna and brown sugar, borax and cream cheese, all plausible options. Salt and Straw corporate claims to employ master chefs, but their flavor design team is in fact, just a few mountain goats dosed with sativa and then set loose in a commissary. If you really want to go the extra mile, dump your ingredients on the floor and roll around in them before heading out for the night. Let the whole club enjoy the tantalizing aroma of Powerade and beef stew. 
  1. The 20th anniversary Blu-ray release of Garfield: A Tale Of Two Kitties. 2026 was a big year for pop culture, and the event that’s probably most on our mind this fall is the 20-year anniversary of the sequel to the live action Garfield movie. This costume is simple: Cut a face hole in an empty cereal box, and then paint the box and your face exactly like the Blu-ray. 
  1. A lit cigarette: Wear khaki shorts, a white tee shirt, and light your hair on fire. The temptation will be to go the cheap route and use rubbing alcohol or gasoline. Don’t be stupid… that will burn away in minutes! Bacon grease is the way to go. A thick coat of grease in the hair will burn low and slow all night long. This one has a lot of potential as a couples costume if your lover is down to dress as a match, an ash tray, or a cirrhotic liver.

There may be people reading this who are nervous to put on any costume at all. Maybe you think you’re not a Halloween person, maybe the idea of pretending to be someone you’re not makes you uncomfortable. Consider this: You likely already pretend to be someone you’re not every day; on the bus, at work, waiting in line for your latte. Participation in polite society requires code switching and careful, if subconscious, curation of self. If the people around you had any inkling about the terrors that lurked in that polluted clown cemetery you call a mind, they would run screaming for the hills. 

Halloween is the one day a year where you can shift this survival camouflaging into a jubilant exercise of self will. Allow the plaster facade of citizenship to crack and fall away like dried Elmer’s on your palm. Pick away at your carapace of small talk and mild manners, letting it slough off and pile at your feet. Rise, steaming in the night, your new body frightening and dangerous. You’re not a project manager with psoriatic arthritis; you’re a dragon, a demon, a sexy Minion. Cast off the shackles of mundanity and join the creatures of the night in unholy revelry. 

We’ll be waiting for you. 

Riley McCarthy is a stand up comic, and artist currently based in Portland. Their full schedule of stand up gigs can be found every month on Instagram @Rileycandunk.