Longtime readers will recall that I wrote asics to complain about a pair of shoes that had gone prematurely lame. I didn’t actually expect a response. But then. This arrived in the mail yesterday.

Dear Jerry:

I was greatly distressed to read about your unfortunate experience with a pair of our shoes.

We, too, look back longingly on the old Tiger shoes. You can imagine our heartbreak when we had to give up the name after a bitter copyright dispute with the Detroit baseball team. Michigan sucks.
When my grandfather, Zebediah Asics, founded the company in his Oregon garage with his wife’s toaster oven, his three principles were:

1. Quality
2. New car smell
3. Never, ever let the wife find what the toaster oven is being used for.

Clearly,we have let you down on the first two. (mmmm, maybe don’t mention that third one to Mrs. Zebediah, eh?

We can’t make up for the anguish we created with our defective shoes or the discomfort you suffered watching that Hallmark movie where the guy shows up to play piano for the school play at the end and the sister waves from the audience and you couldn’t believe they were showing this instead of Lucy hijacking Ricky’s “Don Jaun” audition, but we CAN do one thing to make it right: more shoes. (you thought we were sending you an “I Love Lucy” video assortment? You realize they haven’t actually made betamax tapes since 1982, right?)

Enclosed is an asics sampler pack. Think of it like those little cereal assortments you got as a kid, except none of these shoes is the raisin bran pack that nobody would eat and you eventually buried in the yard so your mom would buy another pack. There’s probably a raisin bran tree growing in your old back yard somewhere. We hope somewhere in this pack is the shoe of your dreams, unless we’re talking about your recurring dream of Sassafras in the tiny dancer costume.

Also enclosed is a check for $26.2 million for Mr. Ernest. Although he will never fulfill his lifelong dream of running that first marathon, we hope he can use the money to spread the word of his beloved MeowMom/ElSeñorRunnerMarathonTrainingPlan© so that others can share his joy.

We hope this shoe collection will ease the sting, and hope that Sting will reunite with the Police and leave Broadway alone.

sincerely,
Ulysses S. Asics

p.s. should Mr. Ernest decline his part of the payout, feel free to spend the money on Medium Chocolate Frosties.