Halloween: a time for collecting enough candy to last until next October, dressing up in markedly inventive costumes, sharing memories of haunted exploits and, best of all, pranking close family and friends. The following students share stories of their own Halloween mischief.
Name: Devon Yach
Year: Freshman
Major: Finance
Hometown:Winthrop Harbor, Illinois
Story: “One Halloween, when I was nine years old, my mom got me this scary ghoul mask from Walgreens. I thought it would be funny to wear it with my bright red poncho and black rain boots in an attempt to scare my sister (who was 11 at the time). So, the morning of the 31st, I donned my majestic costume and walked up the stairs and crouched just below the top step. I sat there and waited for my sister for hours. When she finally passed by, I jumped up and shouted ‘BOO!’ Terrified, she screamed and flailed her arms out. The next thing I knew, I was at the bottom of the stairs with a sprained wrist and a bump on my head. My sister, thinking I was a terrifying monster, pushed me down a flight of stairs and ran away.”
Name: Hana Gulli
Year: Freshman
Major: Undeclared
Hometown: St. Paul, Minnesota
Story: When I was in seventh grade, my friends and I were trick-or-treating. We decided to go to our friend’s house and play a prank on him. I jumped the fence into his backyard, but he didn’t know I was there and he let his dogs out, and they started attacking me. I was so scared that I couldn’t climb back over the fence and the dogs kept jumping on me. I was finally able to get out and we went back to my friend’s house. I thought I had a scratch on my leg, so I rolled up my pants and, all of a sudden, blood started squirting everywhere. One of the dogs had bit me very hard and I ended up needing stitches and I still have a huge scar on my leg from it.
Name: Elizabeth Farwell
Year: Freshman
Major: English
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Story: “In eighth grade you get this ego that makes you think you can do whatever you want. So, to exercise this divine right, at a sleepover some friends and I decided we’d take down the large goblin blow-up decoration in my friend’s yard and throw it in the street with some strings attached so we could move it like a puppet. We hid outside in the bushes of her front porch all night long waiting for people to drive by. The end result? A maximum of three cars merely swerving 10 inches off their path to the left to avoid hitting the jumping, flat, indistinguishable “monster” in the street, and a mother who was very mad the next day when there were still tire marks all over the life and soul of her house’s Halloween spirit.”
Name: Jenny Chau
Year: Freshman
Major: Double-majoring in biology and psychology
Hometown: Denver, Colorado
Story: “Once, I was at a friends house, and another one of my friends and I had a lot of stickers—witches’ hats, spiders and stuff—and we didn’t know what to use it for so we printed out pictures of Nicolas Cage and put the hats on them. I’m not sure how this part happened, but we ended up putting those pictures on the toilet seat cover thing so that when our friend went to pee, he would flip up the toilet seat cover and see Nicolas Cage’s face. He went to pee, and then he came storming out of the bathroom and freaked out at us. It was funny.”
This weekend, enter into the Halloween festivities cautious of irrationally strong sisters, neighbors’ blood-sucking dogs, blow-up goblin-stealing children and Nicolas Cage pictures on toilet seats.
