Graham Holland's Taiwan website

IT'S A FROG'S LIFE
IN TAIWAN

Mystery Doormat

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I know what you're thinking. Probably something along the lines of "Eh?" or "What the...?". Let me explain.

Richard and I have a doormat. It's a very nice doormat, as doormats go. It does a really good job - although considering its job is to lie on the floor and get walked on, that's not too surprising. However, I have always been under the impression that doormats normally have the word "Welcome" or the phrase "Home, sweet home" woven into them. Failing that, convention has it that the good old doormat will have a picture of a house, or a dog, or a cat or (if the house owner is a horse person) a picture of a horse. Not so our doormat, or at least not entirely so. Yes, there is a house. Yes, there's a connection with dogs. But the rest of it is totally bizzare, and quite the little mystery.

So I bet you're wondering what it looks like, aren't you? Well here it is.

I want you to take a good long look at it. I want you to think very hard about it. Take at least two minutes just to stare at it. Once you have done that then we will be ready to move on...

So you have finished? What do you make of it? On the face of it, the doormat is all about dogs. "RELAX AND DOGS - LET'S GO FOR A WALK". Nothing wrong with that. There's also two of the traditional motifs - a house and a dog (in this instance taking on the form of a puppy). But if it is soooooo obvious, how do the makers of the mat explain the other two motifs - the leaf and the soup? What have either leaves or soup got to do with either houses, puppies, relaxing, dogs, or going for a walk?

On British TV back in the 1970s and early 1980s there was a quiz programme called "Ask The Family" which pitted two families (usually a father, mother, and two children) in a head-long battle of wits, classical knowledge, and intellectualness. Robert Robinson always had a whole host (no pun intended) of fiendishly difficult questions that the terribly well-bred, and thouroughly well-educated, family members relished in getting right. This doormat is very like one of those questions. I can just hear Robert Robinson's voice now...

Robert Robinson:- "The Forsyth family - here's your next question. Look at your screen and tell me the connection between the following four pictures."

Cut to picture of doormat, then to the Forsyth family muttering to themselves knowingly... Camera Four pans across the family showing each member individually, brows screwed up in concentration.

Robert Robinson:- "I'm going to have to hurry you."

Mr Forsyth:- "Were they all in the original, unfinished version of Thomas Gainsborough's oil on canvas picture entitled 'Charles Crokatt, William Keeble and Peter Darnal Muilman in a landscape'?"

Robert Robinson:- "Very good. And for an extra bonus point, when was it painted?"

Little William Forsyth:- "Was it 1748?"

Robert Robinson:- "It was indeed 1748. A bonus point going off to you."

See what I mean? Maybe there is a hidden meaning that I'm just being too stupid to see. Or maybe the person in the factory where the doormat was made just didn't have as firm a grasp of the English langauage as Mr Forsyth or Robert Robinson had. Who knows? Who cares?

The Mystery of the Mystery Doormat - unsolved (or not... see below)

If you have any inspired explanations then feel free to email them to me at zaba[at]itsafrogslife[dot]net . If anyone can be bothered to do this then I will gladly post their suggestions in the space below. If, on the other hand, you feel I'm being more than a little obsessive then you can still email me to let me know.

"Hey! Hey! Yo!"

5th August 2004 - Here's a email from a Mr Loaf of Liverpool, England.

The doormat psychoanylised

Hello you two !

Leaves are things that you might find going OUT of the house, SOUP you might find inside (although looking at your photos and reading about the 7Elevens I could have this the wrong way round).

HOUSE and PUPPY are self explanatory - but the theme is clearly 'Going on an errand or for a walk'

Can you bring me one back ? I'll pay for it - or for you to send it to me. I want one just like yours.

Loaf

PS Do I have a user name and password for your nude photo gallery?

The Dragons Friendly Society
Liverpool L18 9UR

Visit our website : www.dragons-friendly-society.co.uk

Graham's reply to Mr Loaf.

Dear Mr Loaf,

Thank you for your interesting suggestion that the doormat is all about going on an errand to buy soup. It would certainly explain why both dogs and soup are mentioned together.

I will keep an eye open for another doormat just like mine and will send you one should I find one.

Yours,

Graham

P.S. What makes you think I have a nude photo gallery? And who told you?

1st September 2004 - Here's a second email from Mr Loaf of Liverpool, England.

Since I last wrote, I have been unable to sleep, haunted, not only by the images on the nude gallery on your website (shudder) - but also by the doormat.

I awoke at 4am this morning shrieking 'Eureka'.... and ran improperly
attired into the road.

Puppy soup is the key! You might have stumbled upon an underworld of
dog-snuffers. And in broken English, you might 'Leaf' your House to take your Puppy to the Soup Maker at the 7Eleven.

It makes sense now. 'Relax puppy... we are only going for a walk (snigger)'

Hey Hey YOuch.

Its clearly a bloodstained puppy-snuff-rug and the key to a subversive international trade in liquidized animals.

Loaf

The Dragons Friendly Society
Liverpool L18 9UR

Visit our website : www.dragons-friendly-society.co.uk

Graham's reply to Mr Loaf.

Dear Mr Loaf,

Thank you once again for your continued obsessive interest in the Mystery Doormat. I know that in some parts of the world people eat (or used to eat) dog, but I don't think that sort of thing goes on here in Taiwan. However, should I happen to stumble across any such underworld activities in the future I will be sure to tell these people that this sort of thing just isn't on.

Yours reassuringly,

Graham

26th August 2004 - Here's a email from a Mr Bilotta somewhere in Illinois, USA.

Hey, Hey, Yo is what the person who was eating the soup said because it was soooo hot and since that person pooped their pants when getting a hot mouth full of the soup, the leaf is the toilet paper...just a guess, but I think I might have figured it out!!! :-)

Or it could be the Philmont supplies for hiking...

[Philmont is the Boy Scouts of America's High Adventure Base and camping facility at Cimarron, New Mexico - Ed]

Graham's reply to Mr Bilotta.

Dear Mr Bilotta,

Thank you for your interesting suggestion that the doormat is connected with hot soup and make-do toilet paper - although that doesn't account for the house or the puppy, unless, of course, you are planning on using the puppy in the event that you run out of leaves.

As far as your second suggestion is concerned, I don't think that even the Boy Scouts of America recommend that their members take soup, leaves, a house and a puppy on their High Adventure expeditions.

Yours,

Graham

The Mystery Doormat:
The end of a saga - September 2005

Richard and I returned home to Liverpool in April of 2005, and packed our beloved doormat into one of our (many) boxes of things to be shipped back. On unpacking the boxes at the other end we decided that the Mystery Doormat should go to a good home.

And who better to give it the best home possible? None other than Mr Loaf, of Liverpool, England.

So here, for your delight and delectation, is a photograph of the Mystery Doormat in its final resting place, at the foot of the door from Mr Loaf's new extension. And in the future, guests of high station and great import will look at the doormat on exiting the property for the peace and tranquility that is Mr Loaf's back garden and mutter to themselves "What the heck does that mean? (mutter, mutter)".

Mr Loaf, we salute you!

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