Over 20 Halloween Challenges (IMPOSSIBLE)

“We love our phones, and there’s no better time to exploit that than during the phone ban! First, dress up as Governor Kathy Hochul and declare that the phone ban is over. Next, post it to TikTok or Instagram or whatever. Wait until 3:35 p.m., when everyone can pull out their phones. Show all of your worst enemies the video, and watch the confiscation begin!” —John Zeng, sophomore

“Buy spider egg sacs and hide one in each of the teachers’ mailboxes in such a way that the eggs all hatch right on Halloween. If you want to be extra petty, make sure to email every teacher on Halloween Eve to alert them of the winning lottery ticket in their mailbox.” —Sara Bhuiyan, sophomore

“Steal a few mannequins from Target. Wrap them in toilet paper and put scary eyes over them so they look like some combination of mummy and zombie. Bonus if the eyes can light up. Put the mummies/zombies in every classroom before school starts. Place a sound device behind the mannequins so that when people open the door to the classroom, the mummies/zombies make the sound of an Aztec death whistle.” —Adeline Liao, junior

“Put an empty pizza box saying ‘Free pizza!’ at some random corner on the third floor. Trip the box with a sensor so that when the box is opened, it is activated. When activated, the sensor would send an electrical signal to the pie flinger, which would fling the pie in the person’s face. Then, after a delay of around a second and a half, the sensor would also trigger the camera inside the box to take a picture, which would then be posted as a collective grouping of all the victims in the Hudson Staircase.” —Aaron Xuan, sophomore

“This prank is quite simple—it only requires that you are a proficient hacker and investigator. First, using your Harvard-worthy detective skills, find out any day that any teacher would be absent (i.e., for an appointment). Next, hack the teacher’s email and inform the substitute teacher that a short pop quiz will be given on the day of the absence. Make an impossible quiz (think ‘What did the seventh Mayan Emperor have for breakfast on Tuesdays?’) and attach it in the email for use by the substitute teacher. Lastly, be conveniently absent on the day of your quiz and feign astonishment when listening to your classmates ranting.” —Manya Gautam, sophomore

“Go to college. Get an educational degree. Get a state license. Become a teacher. Most imperatively, become a tenured teacher. Then, when you’ve established credibility as the ‘chill, funny guy’ that bumps fists with their students, unleash the most diabolical quizzes at the worst possible times ever. Finished your exam a few minutes early? Sure, here’s a 30 MCQ quiz right here to keep you busy. Need to use the bathroom? Lo and behold, there’s an essay on the Spanish Civil War that was destined to be found by you!! (It’s a calculus class). When your students protest, you’ll always win your case, because it was a three-line clause in your 30-page syllabus. Hey, you may have grinded for many years to get to this point with mournful salary prospects, but now the possibilities for villainy are truly endless.” —Erin Cho, senior 

“Replace all the smartboards with Ouija boards instead! Watch classmates and teachers alike panic while the ghosts of John Harvard and students who’ve spent their lives chasing him for an acceptance haunt them for the entire day. Bonus points if you manage to summon a teacher’s lifelong hero—I hear the English teachers would be relieved if, after countless nights praying at his altar, Shakespeare finally graced student essays with feedback. Heh, maybe we could even send some teachers into the Ouija boards with the ghosts!”—Diya Mallu, junior

“Next time you see your friend sneaking a glance at their phone in the cafeteria, go over to the lunch line and grab an orange. Sneak up on them, and in your best impression of one of the deans, whisper, ‘Orange you glad to see me?’ before putting the orange in their hood and emoting on them. Make sure to cover your head in case they decide to throw it at you afterward.” —Jake Chan, junior

“Loudly yell ‘Chicken butt!’ whenever you overhear anyone say ‘What’s up?’ to their friends. Make sure you’re dressed as a chicken when you do this so they know who they’re messing with.” —Lukas Yao, sophomore

“Get a tech-savvy Stuy student to launch a new grading system—maybe call it Jupiter 2.0—where it’s the students who grade their teachers. Categories could include anything the students care about, but the most important one? SYMPATHY. Any teacher who scores below a C in Sympathy is forced to watch an emotional, heart-wrenching, teacher-inspiring movie.”—Zoe Yoon, sophomore

“Buy a Batman costume off Amazon, and come to school without a bookbag. The people at the scanners will tell you to take your mask off, but you should tell them ‘Vengeance has no identity’ and walk away. After you leave them in awe, sweep the halls for delinquent students using their phones and become the greatest vigilante Stuyvesant has ever seen.” —Syed Ali, senior

“Find every instance of the name ‘Stuyvesant High School’ and all related memorabilia in the building, and change them all to ‘Bronx Science.’ I’m talkin’ everything. For realism, you should take the replacements from Bronx Science itself. Then watch as Stuyvesant students start foaming at the mouth when they see the name ‘Bronx Science’ in their beloved school.” —Selina Lin, senior

“Kidnap Principal Yu and hire the master impersonator George Santos as a replacement. Through him, you’ll be in control of everyone. If you get convicted of fraud, just ask Daddy Trump to bail you out.” —Timothy Leung, sophomore

“Halloween is the perfect time to belittle people for their lack of knowledge. However, why not step it up and gaslight people into thinking they’ve been missing out on a large trend that never existed? Bring some of your friends into the joke, creating a fake character that you and your friends will dress up as for Halloween. Have the entire plot of a game or show that you guys will memorize beforehand, including major plot events, side characters, and niche references. Enjoy lying to everyone for a day.” —Deon Woon, junior

“Ragebait everyone by wearing a one-colored top and a one-colored bottom that matches a character you want to dress up as.” —Faiza Rumman, junior

“Hide a calculator in your pocket all day and see how long it takes for someone to accusingly scream ‘PHONE!!’ in your face.” —Nicole Lui, sophomore

“Are you enjoying this spread? Well, you know what would be really funny? If you joined The Spectator Humor Department (applications due November 2!).”—All of Spec Humor

“Pick a politician. Go on, any politician. Got one? Great. Now, perfect your impression of them. From their voice and hand gestures to their body posture, it has to be flawless. Next, visit your local costume store and buy yourself the ideal outfit of said politician. Don’t forget to practice your impression while buying the costume! You can go two ways with this prank. First, you could just troll your friends, but you do that every day, so what’s the point? Second, ideally, you would go knock on all of your neighbors’ doors for a treat (or a trick). This hack is great because, depending on their political opinions, you will either get a trick out of anger for your awesome impersonation or a trick out of anger for who you decided to be for Halloween. Either way, you’ll lose and be given… no treats.”—Alexis Qian, junior

“Come to school in a trash bag and a Brooklyn Tech hoodie. Yes, this requires actually buying a Brooklyn Tech hoodie, and it’s sad to contribute to their extortion racket, but as it’s for a good cause, I’m sure the authorities will understand. Alternatively, you could practice your black market use and simply pirate a BTech hoodie. A third option is to skip school and camp outside of Brooklyn Tech at the end of their school day (which is 2:04… are they even learning anything???), wait for a student in school merch to pass by, and follow them home. Before they reach their house, jump out and mug them for their hoodie. Their release-from-school time is so early you will probably get back home at the same time as you would’ve if you had gone to school.” —Maria Tzanova, junior

“Dress up as Frankie Focus and confiscate phones from every teacher who has their phone out during the day. By the time anyone realizes you’re a student, you should have had enough time for those Fs to magically change into A pluses.” —Eva Kastoun, junior

“Throw up after eating the 50 BooGrams you ordered yourself because you just wanted to make people think that other people care about you in a last-ditch effort to gain some friends.” —Sameer Martin, sophomore