The end of October is a time laden with anxiety for young Christian women. The stress that revolves around finding a bargain on a pair of riding boots is the culprit of many sleepless nights. And then there’s the candy that shrouds every aisle at the grocery store that calls to you in a sweet whisper, “Take me home and have your way with me,” which you eventually do and house a whole bag of peanut butter M&Ms in one night over a few episodes on Netflix.

And then there’s the stress that causes your hair to jump ship as if your head were the Titanic—finding an appropriate Halloween costume.

If only you could don the typical costume a girl your age usually wears—a cat, a maid, or a bunny who all happen to live in the town of Promiscuity. But no, you can’t. You are a good Christian girl. You don’t want to be “that girl” at your Christian young adult Halloween party in a skintight black pleather outfit that really has no resemblance to a cat whatsoever. It would cause gentlemen to stumble. Or become nauseated, as you really wouldn’t look good in all black pleather since you did house that whole bag of peanut butter M&Ms.

Curses, Christian morals and wise standards for living!

So instead you Google image “clean Halloween costumes” and this pops up:

Remember what you learned in your trips to the library in middle school about being specific with your search terms and quotations marks, etc. and try again.

You’ll yield results that are only applicable to babies. And parents with babies. And babies with other babies. And babies as food objects:

This will make you hungry. Decide to eat anything in your kitchen that has some sugar content and then return to your quest at hand.

You contemplate going topical—but let’s face it, everyone is going to be Kate Middleton in a brunette wig and plastic baby from Walmart on their hip. You don’t even know a balding young man to be your prince anyway.

There’s also the option of sculpting your hair into a tornado-esque fashion and planting dozens of plastic sharks in there. This will require at least a dozen bottles of hair spray and at least 3 more viewings of Sharknado.

Decide to turn to the Bible for inspiration. Eve pre-fall would be the cheapest option that requires no preparation whatsoever but, while biblical, is entirely inappropriate and worse than all pleather (even if you decide to use leaves). Remember the no-longer-in-existence bag of peanut butter M&Ms.

You contemplate taking the mundane inanimate object route by fashioning yards of tulle to yourself as your shower luffa. Purchasing a bottle of bubbles would make the costume that much more realistic.

You’ll find you are getting progressively even more indecisive in your elder years and can’t make decisions about dinner let alone a costume. Decide to not decide and be all the costumes combined. Eve, who is dressed (thankfully) as Kate Middleton, who was picked up by a tornado during her most recent visit to the coast of California, who also has an affinity for shower luffas, and in an act of rebellion against the royal family, throws on a headband with black felt cat ears attached.

Decide to begin planning ahead for next year’s Halloween costume the same day all those leftover peanut butter M&Ms go on clearance.

photos: realsimple.com and pregnancyandbaby.com