How to throw a Halloween party

I woke up this morning with a tattoo on my arm and my apartment completely trashed.

I know what you're thinking. Don't worry, I didn't drink too much Tequila, get kidnapped by a motorcycle band, who forced me to get a tattoo and took over my apartment for the after party.

Close, except the tattoo is not real, and my alcohol consumption last night was far from epic. We had the ultimate Halloween party last night. Four of us who live in the apartment complex we have nicknamed the UD Dorms each picked a different theme. The hosts of the party dressed up in that theme, then we moved from apartment to apartment as the night progressed.

We started at Jenn's pirate party, where she had gone all out with black lights, a pirate cage and a poster from Pirates of the Caribbean. An hour later, we moved to Cameron and Krystal's, who had a witch theme. They served witch's brew (Sangria) under a large spider web. Chris' apartment was a western saloon. His girlfriend, Jenn, greeted us at the door with shots of Jim Beam. Chris even had poker and a real saddle.

My theme was a fitting one for the last one of the night. Yes, that's right. It was white trash.


Decorating for this required tearing down everything cute in my apartment and redoing it with a coffee table made of plywood and beer boxes, lawn chairs, hunting magazines, pizza boxes and other cardboard waste strewn about, a Budwiser tapestry, a plastic table cloth with cigarette burns, romance novels and much more. I served Twinkies, powdered donuts, Easy Cheese and jello. For a game, we played, "Pin the axsesoryz on the Redneck."

Someone once told me that having a cocktail party is a good way to make sure your house doesn't get destroyed. People tend to act more civilized when they're dressed up and in a luxurious environment. It works the other way too.

We went from being a sophisticated group of reporters to trying to throw candy corn into each others mouths. Pretty soon the candy corn was whizzing by my head. I of course had to take it to the next level by lobbing a twinkie at Josh. Fortunately, it didn't escalate into an all out food fight. But it was fun.

The only problem was, I spent the morning hopping around my apartment trying to avoid swishing the candy into my carpet. With the help of Gabe, Chris and his girlfriend Jenn, my apartment is now back to normal. It feels good to have my Van Gogh's "Les Irises" back up instead of an "Easy Rider" poster.

Lesson learned: When left in their package, twinkies make a fun, yet apartment safe, food fight material.