Halloween is my Christmas.

Every year of my life I have dressed up in some way for Halloween. Every year of my adult life, I have made at least one and often two or three new costumes to wear for the occasion.  

And, as a qualified expert on the subject, people naturally tend to ask me for costume suggestions.  Only once to date has my suggestion actually been taken up by the person who asked. (It was my friend Natalie who wanted to be a racecar driver but decided instead -at my suggestion- to be a mailman with a stuffed dog attached to her leg at the mouth.)

Usually I make suggestions to my friends without being asked, because one of the most important elements of a Halloween costume, to me, is recognizeability.  If people don't know what you're supposed to be, they tend to be less impressed.  Therefore, it helps sometimes to go with a friend whose costume goes with yours in some way.

But this year when other people have asked me for suggestions I find I don't have any. 

This is no good.  Much like Jack Skellington, I consider it my responsibility, to a degree, to make Halloween awesome for as many people as possible.  

I keep meaning to compile a list of good and simple (and affordable) Halloween costumes that most people would be able to throw together at the last minute, but it never happens.

I've got only three workable "back-up" Halloween costumes in my arsenal and I need more!

The three I've got:

A hydrogen atom. All you need is a hula hoop and a ping pong ball. And a big letter H on your chest. 

The invisible man.  A bathrobe, some bandages (ok, a lot of bandages) and a pair of sunglasses. A fedora if you want to be really sexy, but that's optional.

Euro trash.  A trashbag and a map of Europe.

Yeah, I know that last one sucks. I didn't invent it, I'm just throwing it in there. This is, after all, the emergency back-up list.

I doubt I myself will ever end up having to resort to this list because I usually start working on my own costume in July, plus even if I don't get it finished on time I have a plethora of other costumes from previous years to choose from. 

But my little brother, who is usually more than proficient in this area, asked me for suggestions a while ago and I hadn't any ideas except to point out that he has the hair and approximate build to be the Joker (the Heath Ledger one) but that's so two years ago.

So please tell me, what have you or your friends done as a back-up or last minute Halloween costume that worked out well? 

I want the stories as much as I want the suggestions!