I am posting about the Sylvester the Cat incident because I believe it will serve as a cathartic experience for my friend Heather.  She brings up the suit all the time.  She wasn’t even there when I wore it.  It’s a sick obsession, Heather.  You need help.  If you force your child (conveniently named “Gregory") to wear a Sylvester the Cat suit for some future Halloween outing, I’m seriously calling the authorities on you.

Six years ago this month I was a starving graduate student trying to earn some Christmas money.  I went to a temp agency.  I told them about my academic credentials and my vast knowledge of English literature.  I took a typing test (120+ words/minute) and demonstrated proficiency in many computer-related applications.  They said, “Fantastic.  We need you to dress up like Sylvester the Cat.”

Dramatic recreation by trained professional.  Do not try at home.

It turned out that the creator of Sylvester the Cat was attending a special birthday party at the Warner Brothers store in Boston’s Copley Square, and I was to hang out in front and promote the event.  I assume the guy is dead by now. He was old and senile, and constantly groping the female store employees.  When they sat him down to cut the birthday cake, he waved the knife around like Anthony Perkins.  Everyone felt lucky to get out of there alive.

I mostly stood out front of the store.  An employee was with me at all times, because I could barely see or move, and I could only be in the suit for fifteen minutes at a time.  It must have been 120 degrees in there.

I did learn one thing.  I learned that people react differently to Sylvester the Cat than they do to Greg Howard:

A greasy looking guy and his two friends flashed fifty dollars in front of me.  The guy said, “I’ll give you this if you tell me whether you’re a guy or a girl.” I shrugged, and they walked off laughing, taking their drug money with them.

A woman came up to me and started talking to me like we were best friends.  She showed me photographs she had taken for postcards and calendars.  She was very, very lonely.

Many beautiful women squealed, ran over to me, and hugged me.  It’s not that I ever disputed that an asexual cartoon character gets more action than I do, but it was depressing to see the hypothesis proven to such a degree.

Only one part of the experience bothered me.  Because the suit was so hot, I couldn’t wear pants inside of it.  So I had borrowed some Speedy Gonzalez boxer shorts from the store to assist with my constant robing and disrobing in front of female employees.  At the end of the evening, when I took off my cat head for the final time, sweat literally splashed on to the floor.  I was disgusting.

But they still didn’t let me keep the boxer shorts.