Made in China?

Not long ago, we went to eat dinner at our friend Mohamed's house again. This time, though, instead of watching another Tommy Lee Jones movie with Arabic subtitles after we ate, Beth asked if we could go visit a rug store that she had been eyeing near their flat. They agreed, so after Shymat donned her "going out clothes" and put on her makeup (and shared some with Lee Anna), we all headed down the stairs and toward the store.

Side Note:
While Beth and their 6-year-old daughter were waiting for everyone else outside the front door, Beth noticed another door across from theirs. When she asked if anyone lived there, the little girl matter-of-factly replied, "No, that's where the sheep stay." Now you should know that this flat is on the top floor of their building--5 floors off the ground! We're guessing that the door didn't lead to a flat, but to the roof, and that apparently someone has some sheep that he keeps up there sometimes. We know they're not there all the time because we've never heard or seen them, but Mohamed told us when he heard our conversation that sometimes they're very noisy. We're also really hoping that the sheep have some other way of getting up there than walking up the same uneven, stony staircases that we walk up to get to their flat.

Back to the Main Story:
When we arrived at the rug store, Beth started looking through big stacks of rugs to find cute ones for Sawyer's and Lee Anna's bedrooms. The rugs are basically just all stacked on top of each other, so you just have to fold a corner of the top one back to see what's underneath it. Some of the stacks were almost as tall as Beth! Hung on the walls all around the store were samples of rugs, so that passersby could see what was being offered in the stacks. Jason noticed that there were small doormat rugs with Iowa Hawkeyes, Virginia Caveliers and Tennessee Titans logos on them, and he started wondering what else he might find.

So, while Beth was sorting through the big pretty rugs, Jason made his way to the back wall, where he found several tall stacks of these small doormat sized rugs. A collection of garnet-colored doormats caught his attention. (Not crimson, burgandy, or maroon, mind you--they were garnet.) So here, 7500 miles from Tallahassee, he came across a bunch of Seminole logo doormats. He brought it up front to show off, of course, and pulled out his gold chain Seminole head (which he's been wearing since 1991) to show Mohamed that it's the same head. We're not sure that they ever really quite understood what all the fuss was about. There were just too many foreign concepts--Your university has a ball team? What does that Indian head have to do with anything, anyway? And why are you wearing it around your neck? Nevertheless, they could tell we were pretty excited.

And we got even more excited when we saw the price. Ordering something like this from the Garnet and Gold Catalog would probably set you back at least $25, but we paid a whopping $2.95 for ours. Let us know if you want us to go back and check for your school. We'll be happy to take orders!



(Please no comments about FSU being the ACC doormat this year.)