Whiter Shades of Pale (15 page)

Haircut is the reason why he’s in four bands.

Mustache started as ironic, then became genuine.

Shirt translation: Keep Austin Rent Low for White People Who Don’t Want to Work Full-time.

There is a story here. You don’t want to hear it.

Also owns cowboy boots in an homage to Texas.

When it comes to holidays, there are few that white people like more than Halloween. This is in spite of the fact that white people are required to spend almost the entire year preparing for it. Unlike Thanksgiving or Christmas, the preparation requires little emotional labor, but it does require extensive physical and mental labor along with a fair amount of research.

The Halloween costume is so important to white people because it is a chance to literally show everyone how clever you are without having to say a word. This makes it especially important to single white people, as one well-thought-out costume could produce enough romantic interest to last through the winter.

For this reason any white Halloween party is less of a celebration than it is a contest. And as with any contest, there are rules.

The first thing you need to know is that white people are the only people on the planet who will dress up as a concept. So while your mind considers a costume to be something like “cowboy,” “policeman,” or “Count Dracula,” white people are more likely to think “math,” “the economy,” or “postmodernism.”

Dressing up as a concept is always a major gamble. On one hand, there is the chance that you will nail it just right and everyone in the room will recognize how you not only cleverly interpreted the idea
but also executed it perfectly in physical form. If you get it wrong, you will be required to spend the entire night explaining yourself. Either way, it is a good way to get white people to talk to you.

Things do not get any easier if you try to dress up like a character from a movie. If you show up dressed as Austin Powers or Napoleon Dynamite you will be met with near universal scorn. You see, you need to find a character from a movie that enough people recognize but not one who is so well known that it is easy to find the materials required to create the costume.

That being said, it’s a good idea to draw inspiration from older movies or television shows, specifically ones from the 1980s. Some popular examples: Pee-wee Herman, the skeleton costumes from Cobra Kai, or Marty McFly. Depending on your race and gender, this could be your opportunity to become the alpha dog among your white friends.

The only thing white people like more than costumes is group costumes. So if you are an Asian male of any background, suggest to your white male friends that you all dress up as the Goonies. If you are a black female, offer to play the role of Tootie and go as the girls from
The Facts of Life
. This is considerably tougher for a black male. But if you are short enough the role of Webster could be right for you, or you could do
Diff’rent Strokes
with an ensemble cast. Sadly, if you do not fall into one of these categories your opportunity for a group costume is limited, since there are no recorded instances of white people befriending Asian women, Latinos, Indians, or any other race during the 1980s. Or at least not instances that white people associate with a fun party.

Last, but certainly not least, are white people who dress up as characters from books that have not been made into well-known movies.

These people are unlikely to be recognized as their characters but are
highly recognized as being smart. If you cannot pull off a group costume, this is your best bet. Just pick
any
author who shares your heritage, find a character who matches your age and sex, and remember their name. Then show up in regular clothes.

This also allows you to make the awesome joke, “Oh, you can’t tell? I’m dressed up as a Sri Lankan woman. Which is what I am.” (Substitute race/sex as appropriate.) White people will find this hilarious, unless there is another nonwhite person at the party making the same joke.

You should also be prepared for the guaranteed awkward situation of running into a white person in an offensive costume. It is a certainty that any Halloween party will have at least one white guy dressed up as a recently (and preferably tragically) deceased or wounded celebrity. Past examples include Steve Irwin costumes with a stingray protruding from the chest or Roy (of Siegfried & Roy) with a stuffed tiger attached to the neck.

With this information, you should have no problem fitting right in at a white Halloween party. But don’t try too hard at your costume. White people hate being upstaged.

With their seemingly never-ending selection of low-priced nuts, energy bars, wine, and appetizers, Trader Joe’s has become an essential supply line for white people living in areas not served by a Whole Foods or grocery co-op.

The name of the chain comes from the role it plays in the white person colonization process. When white people decide to take over a once-dilapidated neighborhood, they first send scouts known as “artists,” “freelancers,” or, as you might know them, “unemployed.” Driven with the same level of zeal as early Jesuit missionaries to Quebec, these white people are drawn to the neighborhood by low rents and authentic ethnic experiences. One key difference, however, is that while the missionaries
hoped to convert people to Christianity, white people simply hope to convert property.

Eventually the French would set up a trading post where natives could sell animal pelts in exchange for muskets, cloth, knives, and kettles. A Trader Joe’s does almost the exact same thing, except instead of survival goods they stock soy meat products, baby carrots, and turkey bacon.

Another key difference between early trading posts and Trader Joe’s is the employees. Whereas the trading posts were staffed mostly by ambitious young entrepreneurs, Trader Joe’s seem to be staffed entirely by people who were laid off by independent music stores.

When you are at the checkout counter you might be surprised at how friendly the clerk is and how eager they are to tell you that the prepackaged Jaipur vegetables are delicious with the organic brown rice. Your first instinct will be to look around for a tip jar or some other method that they will use to convert this kindness into money, but there is none. The employees are simply happy to be working at a place that will allow them to stock shelves at a snail’s pace while they talk about the recent concert of the cashier on register three.

Ultimately, a Trader Joe’s simply signifies that a neighborhood is an acceptable place to live. And while this mostly happens in gentrifying neighborhoods, the power of Trader Joe’s is so strong that it can even make suburbs and flyover states acceptable.