Red Room Where the Writers Are

Last night, I came home to an empty doorway. Usually, I'm greeted by a brightly colored doormat, which oddly enough gives me a little smile at the end of the day before I step over my threshold. Last night, though, it was different. There were no bright colors to be seen.

I immediately called my fiance. "Honey, did you remove our doormat for some reason?"

He of course replied, "Why would I do something like that?"

I decided to investigate, and walked downstairs to look within the building. It's not a very large building, so I knew that it wouldn't take very long. In fact, it only took two minutes to find my doormat -- it was sitting very happily in front of the door directly below mine on the floor below, with two pairs of shoes next to it.

I took my doormat back up to my own apartment, then returned to replace it with a note: "Kindly do not remove my doormat again. If you like it, you can get one at Pier 1." (Actually, it's Cost Plus, but I'm not going to go put in the correction with them.) When I went down to my car this morning, the note was gone. Message received.

My remaining question is, who does something like that? Who steals a doormat and places it in front of their own door, right below the original owner's? I haven't actually met the inhabitants of this apartment, but now I'm not sure that I want to.

Although ... perhaps I can just thank them forgiving me a topic for my first blog entry.