During our first-ever trip to Spain last year, my wife and stepdaughter and I immediately noticed the variety and beauty of Spanish door knockers. Neither Rick Steves’ Spain nor any of our friends who had been to Spain nor Carlyn’s hundreds of hours studying Spanish on Duolingo prepared us sufficiently for them. And after taking a few dozen shots of them, my wife began planning a book of these pictures, which she plans to title Carlyn’s Knockers.

Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, etc. etc., I began thinking that I should do something similar. Novels, short stories, trenchant cultural and political analysis–who cares about all of that? I should be applying my very novice photography skills to something interesting in the found environment.

Luckily, this thought occurred to me while I was looking at a curious garbage can in the restroom at Two Stroke Coffee in the St. Johns neighborhood of Portland. My newest occasional blog series was born!

So without further ado, I give you the first installment of what I am calling Let’s All Admire That Fantastic Can:

What first struck me about this can was that it appears to be signed by skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, or at least someone who has really practiced Tony Hawk’s autograph.

I was further intrigued by the much insulted (and perhaps stained) label at the top of the can stating “THIS IS NOT A URINAL.” If you have to remind patrons that something is not a urinal, your coffee shop occupies a certain ecological niche. Maybe you are thinking “that can’t possibly be the coffee shop for me.” However, I am here to tell you that Two Stroke Coffee is awesome. And they have an awesome restroom garbage can.