Gorilla Suit

[Martin Hash]

Stuffed back in the bowels of a strip mall, with only enough store front for a door and a sign that says "$5.99," is Pizza Time. Their logo is a stylized watch dial - but I don't know what that has to do with the gorilla suit. You see, every day at noon, a man in a gorilla costume stands at the corner of Grand and Forth Plain and waves to oncoming traffic. As far as I can tell, everybody looks away, me included - it's just too embarrassing.

I was thinking about it one day, and since new advertising techniques always interest me, I asked the guys at the office, "anybody ever eat at Pizza Time?"

No one answered.

"Isn't that the place with monkey-boy?" commented Marshall. "I always think there'd be a hair in my pizza."

"So, even though that gorilla guy's there every day, whether it's freezing rain or stiflingly hot, no one's ever been to Pizza Time?" I asked, incredulously.

"I've been to Pizza Time," I heard someone quietly say.

"Who was that?" I looked around.

Heath, who had come upstairs to ask a question, sheepishly raised his hand.

"Was the food good?" I asked.

"No," Heath said quietly

"Then why'd you go?" I wanted to know. "Was it the guy in the gorilla suit?"

"Yeah... Sort of," Heath replied.

I thought we might be onto something here: an advertising tactic that actually worked. "Tell me, Heath, how'd the gorilla get you to go in?"

"Well, I was walking past the dude on my way to KFC. He waved at me. I was just about to tell him to buzz off when this little kid runs up and hugs the guy. The kid's yelling, "Daddy! Daddy!" Then the little kid's mother says, "leave your father alone, Bobby. He's working." Heath paused. "I bought two large sausage and bacons."