Halloween is just around the next shadowy blood-spattered corner, and I had no costume. The calendar bent me over, "werewolf-style", and I was running out of time to get my witching season freak on. Also, I was *hauntingly* close to broke, and didn't have a lot of scratch to spend on my holiday outfit. So I settled for what I could get, like a vampire in the Ocean Spray aisle.

As I brainstormed costume ideas, I thought: what's the most minimal outfit possible? Clearly, it's the flasher. The entire set of instructions for constructing a flasher costume go like this: Buy trenchcoat. Remove clothes. Wear trenchcoat.

That's it. One piece, no fuss, and you pray for warm weather through the first of November. The trick is to find a cheap coat to use, and this one fits the bill perfectly. For forty bucks, I got a coat made from some macabre patchwork mess of hides. Maybe they're all from cows, sure. Maybe they're all made from skin. And maybe not -- how should I know? For all I can tell, three dozen naugas lost their skins to this thing. Or maybe it's one big guinea pig graveyard.

Don't know; don't care. All I know is, when I wear this costume to parties, all the ladies gather round to have a look.

Or to laugh at the nasty green rash this thing is giving me. Does this mean I'm allergic to chinchilla carcasses? I need a ruling over here.