7 Reasons

Tag: mat

  • 7 Reasons That I’ve Been Baffled By A Doormat

    7 Reasons That I’ve Been Baffled By A Doormat

    Okay, I’ve been really confused.  I’ve had a tricky problem that’s been plaguing me for the past two days that I think I’ve finally solved but it’s been quite a journey.  It all started with a new arrival*.  A doormat.  I bought it to go inside the front door in the 3’ x 3’ space that, if I were grand, I’d refer to as my entrance hall or vestibule.  As it is, I’ve really never referred to that space before, I just know it as the-area-behind-the-front-door or occasionally the-area-in-front-of-the-world.  Anyway, I digress.  Below these words and above some more is a picture of the doormat.  Here are seven reasons that it’s been baffling me.

     

    1.  Perspective.  Yesterday morning, I pulled the mat from its bag and strode to the front door.  I had blithely supposed that I would be able to place the doormat inside the door and walk away to do something else.  Something important.  Something interesting.  But as I went to place the mat on the floor I felt troubled.  The problem was that the mat has a picture on it.  That means that it’s no mere utilitarian home accessory.  It’s also art.  Not high-art, admittedly.  It’s not Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or Klimpt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, which is fortunate as they probably wouldn’t fare well hanging on the floor in my hallway, and I would probably soon tire of the tourists.  But it’s still art.  And art’s there to be contemplated and enjoyed, to enhance an environment and provide stimulation for those that inhabit the same space.  Essentially, in this case, I realised that when I looked at the owls, I wanted them not to be upside down.

    2.  But That Would Be Unwelcoming.  Surely the doormat should face outward.  To welcome guests.  To make a nice first impression.  What would we be saying by having the mat face inward?  That we’re selfish people that want the owls the right way up for ourselves and care not a whit for the feelings of others?  That would make us appear distinctly unwelcoming.  You can’t greet people with upside down owls.  It’s a question of doormat etiquette.  Doormatiquette.

    3.  But!  Does an outward facing mat welcome guests though?  Because when the guests come into the house – and they sometimes do, we’re sociable people that don’t bite – the owls would be upside down.  So then everybody would be looking at the owls the wrong way up.  Both guests and residents.  No one would win.

    4.  Furthermore!  Having an outward facing mat would send another message.  An unwelcoming message.  And that message is Stop!  Come no further.  Being in the house is an anti climax.  Beyond this point, the owls are upside down.  If you stay outside it’s better.  These people have put this thing here to make sure you stand on their doorstep and come no further.  I was beginning to realise that placing a doormat was more complicated than I thought it was going to be.

    5.  A Compromise?  Okay, so there was no way I could have the doormat facing inward or outward.  But could I compromise?  Turning the doormat sideways would seem to be a fair thing to do, but wait?!  A sideways doormat!  That would be weird.  If someone opened a front door to you and their doormat was sideways you’d think they were barmy.  You’d assume that they were a gibbering harebrain that spent their nights pointing at the moon and their days pointing at the space the moon had been the previous night, pausing only to laugh hysterically at bicycles.  Have you ever been in the house of anyone with a sideways doormat?  No.  Of course not.  People that have been in the houses of people with sideways doormats are probably still there tied down in the cellar or imprisoned in the shed, being forced to eat balloons and comb a jelly or some equally bizarre and hideous fate.  The sideways doormat compromise was out.

    6.  Brainstorming.  By this point, I realised I needed help**.  I decided to ask Twitter.  Carrying the doormat over to the computer, I tweeted my dilemma.  With help from @kittyQ, @davidofyork, @kateypotatey, @jonesyinc1 and @amazingzeesh (all lovely tweeters) I brainstormed the problem.  It was difficult and there was no real consensus.  The nearest we got to a solution was @kateypotatey’s idea of hanging the doormat on the wall and putting it down facing outward only when anyone knocked on the door.  But that raised a further problem.  What would we do when the guests came in?  Wait for them to cross the threshold and then hang the doormat up on the wall?  That would make us look odd.  Not sideways-doormat-odd, but still a teensy bit weird.  And if we didn’t hang it back on the wall we’d all be looking at upside down owls again.  Unless I turned the mat to face inward after they came in but that would appear strange too.  And what if more guests arrived while existing guests were there?   What if we had a party?  Should my wife be responsible for making drinks and handing out nibbles while I take charge of rotating the doormat and greeting people?  That doesn’t sound like much of a party to me.  Or a picnic.  The capacity for it all to go horribly wrong would be endless.  I felt dizzy just thinking about it.  I decided to sleep on it.

    7.  And Sleep Helped.  This morning, when I woke I had an idea.  I walked downstairs and turned the doormat upside down.  The doormat would be ostensibly plain and no one would get to see the owls, but I would be able to peek at them whenever I liked.  We’d have secret owls.  But that felt ungenerous and it bothered me for most of the day.  This evening, however, I did solve the problem.  What I need to do is position the mat picture side up, facing outwards, and to convince myself and everyone that comes into the house that it’s a picture of three owls standing on their heads.  I also need to make them forget that I’ve convinced them of that when they leave.  What I need is a live-in hypnotist.  Anyone know one?

    *Cue angry mob.

    **And I sense that many people might agree with me.

  • 7 Reasons to Embrace Junk Mail

    7 Reasons to Embrace Junk Mail

    Junk mail.  No one likes it, but there are valid reasons to embrace it.  We don’t mean give it a cuddle, that would be weird; we mean accept and enjoy it, because there are – fortunately for us – almost seven reasons to.

    Junk Mail (Image courtesy of Stop Junk Mail)
    Junk Mail (Image courtesy of Stop Junk Mail)*

    1.  Wanted. There is something very comforting about the sound of your letter box opening and something dropping onto the floor. It makes you feel wanted and loved. If it’s a bill then it’s good to know British Gas care that you are still alive and if it’s junk mail – probably from the local estate agent asking you if you would like to consider selling your house to a family of five who have just moved to the area – well it’s good to know that they think you are friendly. You know, the kind of person who would consider moving for a family of five. The estate agents wouldn’t put the same letter through Lord Sugar’s letter box would they? No. Because he has evil in his eyes. And a guard dog.

    2.  New Experiences. One of the most regular pieces of junk mail that adorns house mats all over the country are those from local (and not so local) take-away restaurants. Whether it’s Indian, Chinese, Taiwanese, Bangladeshi, Italian or Chav, what a great way to start experiencing a different culture. It might only take you one chicken dansak to decide that you want to go and experience India for itself or it might only take one late pizza delivery by a teenager who calls you ‘boss’ to make you decide you are living in the wrong part of town.

    3.  Pens.  They say that you can never have too many pens.  And fortunately, charities have challenged this age-old assumption by providing them to us free of charge to us via the medium of junk mail.  And it turns out that you can have too many pens.  I write stuff every day, in fact you’re reading it now.  I write far more than the average person and rarely use a pen.  I require one pen, for the purpose of writing down random notes that I can’t read later on and eventually turn into paper aeroplanes.  Fortunately though, there is an alternate use for all of the pens that charities send to me at a loss.  I use them as legs for my four-legged (and six-legged) potato animals.  I clearly have too many pens.  And potatoes.

    4.  Rubbish. To be embraced heavily are those charity bags that get stuck in your letter box. You know, those that the charities ask you to fill with old and unwanted clothes. Well, if you do manage to remove them from the letter box without ripping them, they make brilliant bin bags. Don’t go walking down the street swinging one around in the breeze though, you’ll become a prime chugger target.  You’ll get chugged.  In a chugging.

    5.  Baldness.  We don’t know everything about the 7 Reasons readership.  The 7 Reasons team both have hair, and we imagine that our readers do too.  But there may be some who are afflicted with baldness.  And, if there should be such people reading, they might learn from this use of junk-mail.  Because back – way back – in history, in a time almost lost to human memory there was once a thing, a sort of a big flaming ball of heat and light that dwelt in the sky.  Some cultures worshipped it, some feared it, and it had many names.  Here, it was known as the sun.  And, in those far-gone days, when it lit up the sky, it was a menace to the follicularly challenged who lacked the natural protection from its rays that the rest of us take for granted.  But with junk-mail there’s always a free emergency hat lying on their doormat, waiting to be origamied.  Just in case the great orb in the sky should ever reappear, as unlikely as that seems.

    6.  Love. If this isn’t enough to satisfy your junk mail habit, then the final option is to create a junk mail-mache person. Then you can really embrace it if you are that way inclined. Or a pervert as it is more commonly known. Just make sure they are dry first.*

    7.  Lifestyle.  As a guide to living, junk mail is invaluable.  Want to know what not to eat or drink?  All of that information is conveniently posted unsolicited through your letterbox.  Whether it’s takeaways, highly dubious drinks delivery services, or the offers at your local branch of Londis.  If a picture of something (these things are always pictorial) comes through your letterbox, then it’s disgusting and common and bad for you.  Yet surprisingly tempting when drunk; which is how they get you, by the way.  They expect you to read them when you’re lying face-down on your own doormat having just made it home from a big night out; when your guard is down.  Why else would they put them there?  Bastards.

    *Because wet perverts are the worst kind.

    You can also use it to make one of these!

    *If you can’t find the love to embrace junk mail, check out Stop Junk Mail here.