Despite being in school and receiving a paycheck to be creative, I am all out of ideas when it comes to Halloween. With last year’s exception, I’ve never gotten too excited about Halloween costumes. Maybe it’s laziness; maybe it’s a reluctance to draw attention to myself; maybe it’s because I am still traumatized by the embarrassment I suffered in first grade when the Superman costume I wore to school involved red and gold Underoos (TM).

(My therapist’s money is on the last one.)

Whatever the case, I haven’t come up with anything yet, and the day is fast approaching. (In fact, I already spent the weekend attending Halloween-related events where, for once, I felt like a jackass for not wearing a costume.)

One benefit of having a sig.oth, of course, is that you can do the always-popular “couple costume.” Tara and I have been tossing a few ideas around, and because our favorite activity—after drinking, of course—is drinking and watching television, our costume ideas are heavily influenced by our favorite TV shows. Here are a few of them:

Jim and Pam, from The Office

Materials required: generic officewear

Pros: I get to mug for the camera with my aw-shucks, nice-guys-finish-last routine

Cons: We have to spend Season 3 at different branches of Dunder-Mifflin

Jack and Kate, from Lost

Materials: petite tank top; a couple canteens; bad-ass shoulder tattoo; magical follicle-stimulating elixr to achieve permanent never-growing, never-shaven five-o’clock shadow

Pros: I could challenge people to fights for questioning my authority and putting the other islanders in danger; Tara could make out with people for no apparent reason and go swimming in her underwear

Cons: I would have to constantly compete for Tara’s affection with Sawyer—who, despite being a nihilistic misanthrope, a con man, and a murderer, is still much less of a tool than I am

Al and Trixie, from Deadwood

Materials: fake moustache; craggy old-man makeup; elaborate period garb; a whorehouse

Pros: We could get loaded on whiskey and laudenum; I could murder people and run a whorehouse

Cons: Tara would eventually betray me for that scheming Jew over at the hardware store; I would develop kidney stones, interfering with my ability to run my whorehouse

Struggling grad students in a creative writing MFA program, from a hit TV dramedy about struggling grad students in a creative writing MFA program (still in development; working title: Grey’s Metonymy)

Materials: singular cocktail of raging egotism and paralyzing self-doubt; beer

Pros: We could get loaded on whiskey and laudenum

Cons: Living below the poverty line