Welcome Home Welcome Mat!!!

Well now, I just don't think you are gonna believe this.

A story for you:

This story begins three days after moving into our new condo when we lovingly placing our welcome mat at our new home entrance. Now this welcome mat, though it may look simple, actually has special value to Tim and I. You see, we couldn't find a welcome mat that we liked for the longest time after we got married. We searched at every store we passed through. One day, there it was. Classy, sophisticated, bushy for good shoe-scraping, and of course the inviting word thereon: Welcome. We loved our welcome mat. Or should we say, we didn't know how much we loved it until it was gone.

One day, three days after moving in, we walked up to our new door and what? Our welcome mat was gone! Where in the world could it be? I felt so violated! I searched the condo wondering if we had been robbed. Alas, nothing was gone but our dear welcome mat.

This needs its own paragraph:

Who takes a welcome mat? Especially one that says "Welcome"?!?

Violated. Unwelcomed.

That did not mean "You are welcome to take me, oh ye who covets this welcome mat."

This violated, and former welcomer, started to do some investigation. The clues unfold.

#1. Tim had noticed that the kiddie corner condo had had the same welcome mat. The kiddie corner people had moved out earlier that day. Had they seen our welcome mat and thought they dropped it at our door and put it in their moving truck? Perhaps so. We try to give people the benefit of the doubt.

We go with that until clue #2 unfolds.

#2. I knock on our "across the breezeway" neighbors door and ask her if she has any ideas. Did she see our welcome mat?

"Oh yeah. That apartment (the kiddie corner apartment) had both mats at their doorstep stacked one on top of the other. The same doormats, two of them. My husband and I were wondering what they needed two doormats for...Yeah. They took your doormat."

...

ROBBED! Full on robbed. By a former university football player that I know you all know, no less. And his beautiful wife that is actually my little brother's best friend's ex-girlfriend. Ha! I guess they wanted to welcome people into their new home from every point of access, with matching welcome mats, at whatever the cost.

I take action. I asked the new women moving in to the kiddie corner apartment if she could ask the people that just moved out if they ended up with an extra doormat. This she did. EIGHT WEEKS AGO.

Eight weeks pass, and let me tell you, I told Tim, at least on a weekly basis, how much I missed our welcome mat. How my front door aura just wasn't the same without the word "Welcome" anywhere in sight. How I had seen some at Pier 1 that were cute...but they weren't our dear welcome mat we searched out for so long as newlyweds. We had put up our industrial doormat there, and Tim kept telling me we didn't "need" another mat. That maybe I "wanted" one, but we didn't "need" one. (yeah, yeah, yeah, I know already! But I need!)

I had given up hope. Yes I had. And this "non-needer" was trying to get used to the commercial doormat we had substituted that makes our condo look like it is a real estate office.

THEN TODAY!!! Oh today. What a beautiful day. Here she comes. The beautiful ex-BYU football player's wife. The ex-girlfriend of my little brother's former best friend, who married my little's brother's ex-girlfriend of three years, which two people were the only non-immediate family at my brother's setting apart of his mission who ended up marrying each other. Oh the triangle/pentagon/quadrangle of love.

I see her carrying up my blessed welcome mat to her old condo's door! "That's mine!," I silently scream.

Had guilt driven her here to return our proverbial and overmissed material possession?

At just the right moment our pathways intertwined.

I watch her place the mat down and walk away.

I go to my mat. It had been battered and abused, but yes, still there it was. And contemplate on whether I steal it back! Or explain the situation so that I too do not become an alleged thief.

I called to her hesitantly. "Ma'am. Did you just place that mat there?"

I'll spare you the details. But I decided to explain. It was awkward. We laughed it off.

...

I can't believe it. I truly cannot believe it.

Welcome home welcome mat! We have a place for you, right here.