Sure, the PDX airport carpet was designed in the tradition of 1980s carpets made to blend in with fallen cigarette butts, but for years it’s been our earth-toned welcome mat.

Now, despite its pious name, it appears that Bishop Airport in Flint, Michigan covets our carpet. Portland Monthly has obtained exclusive phototographic evidence of the offending rug (right). Incriminating photos found on Tumblr confirm suspicious similarities between the two carpets.

Patterned after an overhead view of PDX's crisscrossing runways, the PDX carpet was first installed in 1987. Over the past 6 months our now-ubiquitous welcome mat design has experienced a nostalgic revival of sorts (spurred on by news that the carpet would soon be replaced) and is now found on socks, t-shirts, and even bike helmets. It has a Twitter account and 8,783 Facebook likes. 

SRG Architects, the Portland-based designers of the PDX carpet has never heard of Flint’s rug.

After a few phone calls, we found out the wannabe PDX flooring was designed by Millken Carpet in... wait for it... Seattle.

Not cool.  

[UPDATE: Fixed typo.]