Confucius once famously proclaimed: “Three beings don’t get cold in winter: penguins, polar bears, and hoes.” How he knew about polar bears and penguins remains one of the great mysteries of ancient China, but he had a point.

The timelessness of his wisdom is proven every year during Halloween. Last year hundreds of short skirts braved a snowstorm—this year they might have to repeat that feat in a hurricane. Not as cold, but equally daunting.

Halloween is one of the main selling points of U.S. colleges to international students, who only know of it through myths and legends. This year Sandy might turn it into a massive wet T-shirt competition, only adding to the hype.

Of course, this is Columbia, and society’s pressure on girls to dress like that needs to be denounced.

However, there is a good side to the story. If you have two X chromosomes and come out of a midterm late Wednesday afternoon in need of a quick costume, there’s an easy way out. Take any noun and put “sexy” in front of it, and you have yourself a great Halloween costume.

Last year, I met a girl who’d dressed up as Pippi Longstocking every year since eighth grade. It hardly required any effort, but it worked every year.

There is no way any guy could pull off a cowboy costume after puberty. In our last-minute improvisation efforts, we need a little more creativity to impress people. Just putting on a sports jersey doesn’t count, however big your biceps are.

Fortunately, there are still great last-minute costumes for guys. You could be Cupid. All you need are some tighty-whities and a makeshift bow and arrow.

Unless you are a hoe (or a penguin or a polar bear), this could get pretty cold though.

Jan Leibbrandt is a sophomore who is sincerely impressed that halloweencostumes.com has more than 1,000 “sexy” Halloween costumes.