Where the Feet Have No Name (or, Running Down the River)

Oh, how I wish that headline (blogline?) was mine.  It is so....perfect.  The perfect example of the perfect headline (if it had been a blog, that is) that would have drawn readers in.

But it isn't mine and I must give full credit.  I suppose "mystery of the floating feet" or "whose feet were these, anyway?"  just would not have read the same.  In fact, the entire story has become a punner's paradise, complete with an oceanographer whose nickname is Dr. Duck. (not Dr. Scholl's?)

I learned tonight - on, of all places, a political talk show - that the "mystery of the feet" has been solved.

This fascinating mystery started in 2007 when feet (yes, human feet) enclosed in sneakers started to float ashore between Washington State and British Columbia.   I'll spare you the gory details.

Most of the....er, former owners of the feet have now been identified.   And, contrary to popular opinion, it wasn't the Mob, or a Sasquatch with a foot fetish, who did it.  Some morbid people even thought the feet came from a plane crash.

Now investigators have concluded the deaths were all accidental -some were suicides who had jumped off various area bridges.  The sneakers were so well made that they protected the feet, which were carried by various currents to where they were found, while the rest of the remains....well, remained.

So, with all due respect, I know these fe...I mean, people, had families, had people who loved them, and deaths should not be made fun of.  I guess this whole thing was so bizarre that it just struck a certain part of the imagination.

And the media isn't done yet, either.  For example, quoting from one of these articles:

"The B.C. coroner echoed that suspicion this week. "I think there are a lot more cases" destined to be discovered, Fonseca said. "I don't think there's a soul out there that doesn't check every shoe they find on a beach.""

Soul.  Ouch.

But I'll never think of beach coming in the same way again.