Ladies, Halloween is just around the corner, and we finally have an excuse to dress scantily and don a pair of animal ears, despite the forecast. As Cady said in “Mean Girls,” “In Girl World, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” Aren’t we lucky?

Choosing a Halloween costume generates more debate, pros-and-cons lists and research than choosing a major. We spend massive amounts of time in thrift shops and costume stores. Ideas are exchanged, approved and disapproved — we need to find that perfect costume.

Regardless, deciding what to be on Halloween is difficult — perhaps one of the most stressful decisions we have to make each year. Most importantly, we are governed by Halloween rules. How these rules differ is based on the people we hang around, but they essentially fall under two categories:

The sexy costumes

“Mean Girls” blew the lid off the sexy-Halloween-girl essentials: a dress or lingerie and a pair of animal ears. The options are endless: cat, mouse, dog, ladybug, chimpanzee, etc. Like Kristen Schaal demonstrated on “The Daily Show” last week, there are waves of sexy costumes — or foods (sexy carrot or sexy pizza, anyone?) — out there for females. Essentially anything really works as long as a lot of leg or cleavage is on display. These costumes, like our mail people, clearly work despite rain or shine, snow or sleet.

Ironic and cultural costumes

Be honest, how many of you have Googled clever Halloween costumes before? These costumes include any obscure movie star, a ’90s cartoon character or anything that makes a political statement (i.e. binder full of women last year). These Halloween costumes put your wit and ingenuity to the test. Anxiety in the form of: “What if no one understands what I am?” or “What if this isn’t funny enough?” will plague your thoughts.

At the end of the day, Halloween is a holiday, so give your brain a rest. Regardless of your party’s costume expectations, pick out something that you feel comfortable in — and keeps you warm in this crazy Minnesota weather. Besides, you’ll always have next year.