I’ve always felt like I wasn’t celebrating Halloween the right way. But maybe that has something to do with my lack of cool costumes throughout my life.

For example, somewhere out there are pictures of the fat, pudgy child version of me, wearing a giant yellow toucan costume. I thought it was cool at the time, but for some reason it has lost its luster. Also, I may or may not have wet myself in said costume, and that has a way of tainting holidays. Even as a grown man who has control of his bladder, my costume choices still suck.

This year, though, I decided to do Halloween right. But then I was promptly reminded that Family Weekend is this weekend.

Really, Syracuse University? On the most sacred of weekends?

Parents shouldn’t have to witness the full brunt of college Halloween. That poor girl dressed as a sexy angel, taking that walk of shame, was once just her parents’ regular little angel. How are we as college students supposed to make poor decisions at night when we have to wake up at nine the next morning to eat breakfast — featuring a whole lot of cantaloupe — with our parents?

Don’t fret, though, because I’ve thought the whole thing out already so you don’t have to, making any questions your parents may ask much easier to answer.

Everybody knows the key to getting rid of a particularly nasty hangover is a combination of sunglasses, coffee and turtlenecks. These can be easily explained away.

When your dear parents ask you why you’re wearing sunglasses indoors, explain to them that in your climate change lecture you learned that UV rays are the cause of rampant blindness. But make sure you throw in a bunch of science words like “hypothesize” and “phosphorus” to really drive home the point that you know your stuff and you’re not just hiding from the harsh light of the morning sun.

When asked why you’re guzzling an absurd amount of coffee, simply tell them about how you were up all night writing a huge psychology paper in the library. Make sure to elaborate that it’s not even due this week, but you find Freud’s theories so interesting that you just couldn’t wait to get started.

In their minds, they’ll think to themselves, “Wow what a profound adult we’ve created. That’s definitely not someone who was just twerking up a storm last night.”

Now comes to the harder part of Halloweekend debauchery to cover up: the dreaded hickey.

My suggestion is to simply bust out all of the turtlenecks possible. Wear two, or even three, and make it a new fashion statement. Then, maybe layer that with a scarf. You won’t look silly at all. You’ll look like an actor getting ready for a headshot. Your parents will be so proud.

Or you could just slow it down for just this one weekend. Who says we can’t dress in costumes any other day of the year? Besides, don’t we owe our parents, the people who made all of this possible, not to be a hungover mess when they come to visit?

Plus, Halloween is on a Thursday this year. That gives us one day to sober up before the cantaloupe begins.

Christian Unkenholz is a sophomore public relations and political science major. You can identify him as the man dressed as a sexy dog or maybe just a sweaty dog. His column appears every Thursday in Pulp. He can be reached at cdunkenh@syr.edu.

Published on October 31, 2013 at 2:16 am