Pimpin' Santa.."don't come back wifout the money be-ya-atch"

Finger through the classifieds of your paper and you might find an ad for a special someone to come and visit you wearing an alluring costume. The visit will set you back $175 an hour and just $75 each additional hour. If you think more than a few bucks of that are going to the performer, you're wrong.

That visitor is Santa Claus and Henri Paquet is the big pimpin' genuis behind the visits from the rolley poley jolly man. Paquet's operations have long been down in St. Hubert and as well as organizing and supplying a mean gang of Santa Clauses, he's also a veteran of the costume rental biz.

Paquet has earned his stripes as a media fave around Christmas and Halloween, as he has the brains to offer a spicy quote to those who ring him for their filler copy.

He claims that he initially got in the costoume biz supplying G-strings to strippers. His best media moment surely came in 1985 when he told Gazette writer Carole Treiser that transvestites are his best clients, as they are up for a costume year round.

The second-best customer demographic for a custome shop owner is - brace yourself for a biggie - "Suspicious boyfriends who need camouflage for a night out trailing their girlfriends."

Guys, are you really dressing up as women so you can tail your girlfriend unseen and check if she's cheating on you?


Didn't think so. We call bullshit. But it's a great quote nonetheless.