I always wind up staring at the little drains in the floor.

I like to imagine the factory where they were made, whether they were stamped out or die-cast or drop forged. I wonder about the people who work there and the whole corporate apparatus that must lie behind its production and design. Somewhere in America a man in a fabric-walled cubicle is making sales calls regarding a metal grid about five inches in diameter, destined to be overlooked, pissed on, obscured by filth and grime, and which features the name of the company that made it in proud capital letters, right there in the center. Are there motivational posters on the walls?

When they're gunked up like this one, I get an almost overwhelming urge to steal them and throw them in an industrial dishwasher or something and return them to their original location in sparkling new condition. I have never actually done this, though.