Three thoughts on . . . floor mats

1.  Floor mat gratitude.
Last summer, we had bedbugs, so we had to launder and bag up all extraneous cloth stuff.  When the bedbug situation was resolved and we (eventually, cautiously) brought back out the throw pillows, floor mats, etc, I was struck by how incredibly grateful I was to have bathroom floor mats again.  Stepping out of the shower onto something not cold  -- that was a welcome sensation.  Having a squishy floor thing to catch water so the floor wasn't slippery -- nice.  A bit of extra color in the room -- cheery. 

I'm pretty sure I'd been influenced (brainwashed?) by a post on Raptitude on the power of negative visualization (How to Create Gratitude), and  in particular his description of imagining no socks (my feet get cold super easily because of circulation issues down there).   At any rate, I didn't just visualize the absence of bathroom rugs, I lived it, and while it wasn't a devastating tragedy by any means, I was struck by how much more grateful I was once the rugs came back.

2. Floor mats to save work.
A few decades ago, for some reason I was on a kick where I was joy-reading books on how to clean things (like, seriously, I read pretty much every book on this in our public library).   One of my faves in the series was a book by Don Aslett called "Make your house do the housework" -- basically, a book on how to design spaces that need less cleaning, and that are easier to clean when they do need it.  One of the takeaways:  use really good floor mats at the entrance to the house.   A "really good" floor mat is something that is rubberized on the bottom (so it doesn't slip), large (so people actually step on it a bunch), and textured on top (so it grabs shoe debris).  Entrance rugs make a big difference, he says, in keeping a house clean.  I have one that I found at a yard sale, about 3feet-by-4feet, on my front porch.  This mat, too, makes me happy.

3.  Floor mats of imminent disaster.
I have family-in-law member who has a bunch of very small floor rugs, in series, that lead from her front door toward the living room.  You come in the front door, and you traipse across the floor and the little rugs and floor and rug and floor and rug.  Those rugs, I have to say, are pretty and scary.  They're pretty scary.  

When my sisters and I visit this home, we mutter together against this particular family-in-law member, and the rugs are part of the muttering.  The rugs are slippery on the wooden floor.  They are tripping hazards.   We do worry that these particular rugs will someday be complicit in the fall of a person we love.  

So it's not like I'm an unconditional floor-mat-o-phile.