[Ed. Note: Pete is on vacation until Monday. In the meantime, we offer an insider's view into his morning mail..] **

P,

Per your brief, my faithful assistant and I have finished our inquiry into the shocking allegations of armadillo infiltration into the world of Tennis. We have discovered a hotbed of potentially dangerous, fanatical armadillo activity in southeastern Michigan.

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Subject

Subject

Our chief subject, and suspected ringleader of a tennis cult, goes by the name of Armand Dillotante (See Exhibit A: The subject). He is approximately eighteen inches in stature, eight inches wide, and weighs roughly seven kilograms.

Identifying characteristics include small, beady black eyes and nine distictive bands upon his heavily armoured, camouflaged body. His overall appearance is covert; he is able, without warning, to disappear.

Dillotante is secretive about his place of birth — our informants claim he is an illegal alien and all official paperwork found, thus far, lists his birthplace as 'Unknown'. However, when questioned, Dillotante repeatedly stated that he is a native-born American armadillo. Extensive research appears to confirm this; it suggests that Dillotante is a mammal of the Order Xenarthra, Family Dasypodidae, known as Dasypus novemcinctus (Linneus), known collectively as a 'Nine-Banded Texas Armadillo'.

Unfortunately, since few armadillos are able to register the birth of their children, they are unable to easily prove their U.S. citizenship. This does not simply mean that Dillotante cannot vote — as he lacks the paperwork necessary to get a passport, Dillotante is unable to legally exit and re-enter the country. It is worth noting that this has not stopped his movements; We have received numerous, as-yet-unconfirmed reports of Dillotante being sighted at The Rogers Cup, held each summer in Toronto, Canada.

Dillotante is currently employed as a visiting professor of Media Studies at a small, exclusive private college in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He attempts to fit in with the faculty, although he refuses to explain how he ended up at this college -- Dillotante denies the fact that he made his first appearance in a shipping box, addressed to one of the members of the faculty.

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Wwn

Wwn

His classes are popular — he not only teaches media, he is very good at using it in his lectures. In addition to teaching media, he helps design sets for the theatre department and loves to play the piano.

He has an extensive collection of books, although he has been seen reading material that is not generally considered academic in nature. He insists that Tennis magazine and the Weekly World News are part of his mysterious, ongoing "research" (See Exhibit B: Dillotante at work).

The college prides itself on its dedication to diversity, and is known for having more non-human tenured and tenure-track professors than any other school in the United States. Some have criticized the college, charging it with having only a superficial commitment to employee diversification.

This charge is not baseless; with the exception of Dillotante, every other non-human professor at the college is a bear. The college responds to these allegations by arguing that their belief in diversity is reflected by the fact that they employ bears of every color.

Dillotante was recently overheard, during a yearly staff review, complaining that the greatest hardship imposed by his lack of passport is the inability to travel to major overseas tennis tournaments (and NOT employment-related conferences). Therein lies the crux of our investigation.

He is dedicated, with fanatical fervor, to the game of tennis. Students suggest that Dillotante often neglects his professorial duties in favor of viewing and playing tennis. This has been confirmed; my assistant has observed Dillotante spending upwards of ten hours per day watching and discussing tennis on the internet, and two to four hours per day on or around local tennis courts. Under questioning, Dillotante defiantly defended himself against these allegations of professional neglect:

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Coffee

Coffee

Evidence suggests that Dillotante is actively recruiting his fellow professors into an insidious underground cult of tennis worship.

Under the cover of darkness, he has been sighted, scuttling towards Little Italy (a nearby coffeehouse) where several of his associates congregate and prosyletise the game over mocha lattes (See Exhibit C: A photograph of said Hideout). Unfortunately, the intimate atmosphere of the coffeehouse has impeded any and all surveillance activities.

We feel that it would be in the best interest of society to immediately escalate this investigation. As you are aware, the Department of Sportsland Security has declared such underground behavior against the Sportsmanship Act of 2001.

A crack surveillance team is needed to infiltrate Little Italy, placing appropriate listening devices where necessary. We also believe that one of his closest associates, a professor by the name of Mi Yung, could be a potential major informant. Sources indicate that Ms. Yung could easily be broken, if somehow deprived of her daily tennis fixation, ultimately leading to the capture and conviction of Armand Dillotante and the end of this terrible tennis faction.

We await further command.

Mercedes Bends, DBE, OBE, Lead Investigator
Steegy la Florentine, Assistant Investigator