The Kitchen Mat Rosalind Wishes the Cafeteria Had Bought

Twenty-nine years I stood on bare quarry tile in a school cafeteria. No mat, no cushion, nothing between my feet and that floor but a pair of white work shoes. I retired five years ago and brought the ache home with me. My own kitchen floor is tile too, and by the time the roast went into the oven on a Sunday I was already looking for a reason to sit down. Last January I bought a ComfiLife anti fatigue mat, twenty by thirty-two inches and three quarters of an inch thick, and laid it in front of the counter between the stove and the sink. That was about twenty-two months ago. It has not moved since.

Before that I had a thin cotton rag rug, the kind you wash and lay back down. It slid under my heel. It bunched up. It did nothing at all for the standing, and I knew that, but it was what I had. I had never owned a cushioned mat in my life, and the school never gave us one. Let me say the plain thing right here: a mat is not medicine. It did not fix my knee. My doctor diagnosed arthritis in my right knee about five years ago, the year I retired, and I still have it. What the mat did was smaller than a cure and a good deal bigger than nothing.

The first Sunday after I laid it down, I noticed it around the hour I would normally start eyeing the kitchen chair. My feet were not complaining. My lower back, which usually starts in on me partway through the potatoes, stayed quiet. I did not mention it to Paula because I did not want to make a fuss over a floor mat. The next Sunday was the same. By the third week I had stopped noticing it, which is the highest compliment I can pay a thing that lives on a floor.

Here is what it actually is, since people will ask. Memory foam, three quarters of an inch thick, with a bottom that grips tile and does not skate when you turn. I wipe it with a damp cloth when the cooking is done. What it does not do is hide anything. Crumbs and a dusting of flour show up, and they want wiping. And twenty by thirty-two inches is one good standing spot, not the length of the counter. Step left to the cutting board and you are back on the tile. I make that step every Sunday and I notice it every time.

My feet were not complaining, and my lower back, which usually starts in on me partway through the potatoes, stayed quiet.

People ask me whether the mat fixed everything, and I tell them no, because it did not. It does nothing for a pickle jar lid and nothing for the walk from the grocery store to the car. Those came later, other purchases, other stories. The mat was first because it was first in my day: before I could serve the Sunday dinner I had to stand there and cook it. If your knees complain and your kitchen floor is tile, the floor is where I would start.

I think about that cafeteria floor more than I expected to. Twenty-nine years at one elementary school, and I can still tell you where the tile was cracked by the steam table. Nobody thought to put a mat down at my station. I do not say that to complain. I say it because I did not know, for most of my working life, that standing had a fix short of sitting down. If you are still working on a hard floor, or you are sixty-eight and cooking for three every Sunday like I am, you are allowed to make the floor kinder.

One more honest note. A cushioned mat is not a substitute for your doctor. I am not a nurse and I am not a therapist. I managed a cafeteria and I cooked a lot of Sunday dinners. If your knee is giving you trouble, get it looked at. If you are thinking about a supplement, ask about that too, especially if you take a blood thinner or you have a shellfish allergy. I asked, and I am glad I did.

Twenty-two months in, my ComfiLife mat still lies flat. No curled corners, no soft spot worn through where I stand the most. I wipe it, I put it back, I do not move it. That is the whole routine and it takes about ten seconds. For a thing that lives on a kitchen floor and takes a beating from flour and hot pans and my shoes, that seems decent to me.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

I would tell you to buy the mat before the gadgets. I bought five things over about ten months and the mat was the one that changed my Sunday. The others helped in their own ways and I will get to them another time, but the mat came first, it helped in the first week, and it is the one I would replace tomorrow if it wore out.

And I would tell you to be honest with yourself about your floor. If your kitchen is carpeted, or you cook sitting on a stool, you probably do not need this and I would not talk you into it. If you stand at a counter on tile for two or three hours and your feet are the first thing to give out, then you already know what I know. Measure the spot first. Twenty by thirty-two inches is a spot, not a runway. Put it where you actually stand, not where it looks nice.