These shoes are normally in the $100ish range and are quite difficult to locate, they aren’t the sort of shoes you would expect to find at Nordies or wherever. Additionally, they are fabulously hideous. No matter.

When at a track day over the weekend with some buddies – a friend of mine noticed that 3 of the people he was working a corner with were wearing the same Piloti shoes. The retold and dumbed-down conversation went something like this

Friend: Hey are all 3 of you color coordinating or something?
Dudes: No we all just wear Piloti shoes
Friend: Uhhh… that’s kinky
Dudes: Nah we got them at Ross for a smooth $20
Friend: HOT!

Now in discussion with said friend I realized that Ross carries items for a limited time and especially an item like this is sure to be a lucky, but rare find. Sunday he rolls into his local Ross and low and behold there are a pair in his size, orange no less.

So today after work I try my luck and I find that there are not one, but two Piloti shoes in varied forms of Lambo-Yellowness. I bought both. One of them is more leisure, and the other is race-ready complete with the padding on the right shoe capable of dealing with the complete flogging heel and toe requires.

Yes, I realize they are ugly. Thanks.

Then, after it all I discovered…

None of that stuff actually matters, I was far more interested, and distracted by the following letter that I had found on a friends blog.

It is the story of some dude who keeps sending in useless items of scientific significance to the Smithsonian institute. The letter was written by a curator to the some dude.

This sort of thing makes me grin with glee. This sort of humor really touches me in special places.

Yours in Science!

Mike

Paleoanthropology Division
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078

Dear Sir:

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled “211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post. Hominid skull.” We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents “conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago.” Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the “Malibu Barbie”. It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to it’s modern origin:

1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.

2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.

3. The dentition pattern evident on the “skull” is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the “ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams” you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time. This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:

A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.
B. Clams don’t have teeth.

It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in it’s normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating’s notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results.

Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation’s Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name “Australopithecus spiffarino.” Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn’t really sound like it might be Latin. However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your back yard.

We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation’s capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the “trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix” that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.

Yours in Science,

Harvey Rowe
Curator, Antiquities