CULTURE
In Defense of Pepe Le Pew
And choosing not to wear a hair shirt through life
As I drove east on Belmont and passed Southport, I passed a vintage apartment where I once spent an awkward early summer evening with the manager of the vegetarian diner where I worked.
Jean was older and charming. He had tan skin with freckles, jet-black hair with a tinge of gray around the temples, and a Cheshire cat smile. He was tall, lean and vegan. We were flirtatious at work and I was somewhat attracted to him, which is why I agreed to a dinner date one Friday night.
The moment we sat down at dinner in the Thai restaurant, however, I knew the date was a mistake and felt the desire to get away. But I wanted to be polite and let Jean down gently. After all, I liked him as a person and he was my manager.
It was kind of a shame that I wasn’t attracted to him because intellectually he was pretty appealing. But there was something about him that made me feel like Penelope Pussycat sitting beside Pepe Le Pew in a Looney Toons cartoon.
