There's a specific kind of porch shame that arrives around the second week of November. The pumpkin has gone soft on one side. A cobweb decoration is hanging off a single nail because the other one gave up. And underfoot there's a doormat with a cartoon ghost on it that made sense for eleven days and now reads as "she stopped trying."

I've been making doormats since 2009 and I have watched this happen to a lot of front doors. Including mine. I made my Halloween porch ghosts out of…

In 1984 I was a high school kid at the North Carolina School of the Arts, sitting in an art history class I had no business being as obsessed with as I was. The teacher was Harry Titus. He was a professor at Wake Forest and he came over to teach high schoolers because he wanted to, which at fifteen I did not understand and at fifty-something I understand completely.

He taught us Rococo architecture. He taught us the difference between Ionic and Doric columns, which I can still tell…

Go look at your doormat. Right now, I'll wait. If the letters are half gone, one corner's curling up like a stale sandwich, & the whole thing has faded to the color of a wet paper bag — congratulations, you've been living with a doormat corpse & greeting every guest with it. It happens to the best of us. In fact, this is my own sad doormat! The doormat is the one thing in the house that works hard every single day & gets thanked never.

So let's talk honestly about…

The Customer Who Buys Three Giant Rude Doormats at a Time (Every Three Years)

Every three years, like clockwork, Kimani in Flushing MI places one of my favorite orders on earth: a set of THREE supersized mats, each ruder than the last. We're talking "Knock Hard But Not Like You The Police," "…

The Woman Who Gifts Rude Doormats to Everyone She Loves (Even Her Boss)

Some people give gift cards. Some people give candles. And then there's Shannon O, who has spent the better part of a decade telling the people she loves to go get bent — in coir, at their own front doors, with my full cooperation.

Shannon has been coming back to me since 2015 for rude custom doormats, & the recipient list is the best part: friends, family, & yes, her…

Renew Your Lease? Renew Your Doormat.

The renewal notice shows up in your inbox like a tax bill with feelings. Same apartment, new number, sign here for another twelve months. And you do — because moving is a nightmare, the light in the afternoon is perfect, & you finally trained the radiator. But there's a specific little sag that comes with staying: the place is exactly the same as it was yesterday, & somehow that makes it feel older than it is. Same walls. Same…