Public restrooms: public enemy numbers 1 & 2
When you need to go, the last thing you want to happen is to be assaulted by the very facilities you trust with your discreet business. Unfortunately, with the state of today’s technology, assault has become a commonly employed method for moving people through quickly, allowing businesses to decrease the number of stalls necessary for a given number of patrons. It makes business sense, but it doesn’t make business sense. (Yes, Robby, that was “pun-gent”. So was the title. So is the subject of this post. Punception!)
Automatic Flushing
Are you done? Too bad! The Flushinator 3000 will make sure that anything still inside the stall will be gone in five seconds, out one way or another.
Motion Sensing Faucets
They sense motion, but the sensors are always pointed at an awkward angle away from your hands. You could try to use your knee to activate it by lifting it up to the sink, but then you risk getting a suspicious water trail down your leg.
Half-Ply Tissue
It conserves trees and money. Except that everybody just uses five times as many sheets.
But nothing is as bad as…
Automatic Air Fresheners
I was standing at a urinal. I was the only one in the restroom. I was just about to… AAAAAAAARGGGGHHH!!!!! Who spat on my neck?! Who just spat on my neck?! I’ll tell you who spat on my neck. It was that stupid thing on the wall that sprays a “mist” every so often to keep the stench manageable. Or at least that’s what they want you to think. It’s fairly obvious that public restrooms are simply there to toy with people. It’s a social experiment run afoul. We need to do something about it before the hand dryers learn how to spin their fans the other direction.
This actually happened to me.
So here is another “improvement.” The monitors of bathroom efficiency noted that paper rolls are a source of work for bathroom keeper uppers and those employees cost money. So, they came up with mega rolls of paper and put in new dispensers that allow all the keeper uppers to have a week off before having to give the bathroom attention again. This has created two issues. One is that the bathroom entropy is allowed to proceed unchecked because the most prominent complaint that came from the consumers was that there was no paper.
The second issue is that when the monitors decided to install the mega dispensers, they did not want to deface the beauty of the wall next to the facilities. So, they just installed the mega dispensers in the same screw holes that the teensie rolls had been installed. This resulted in the opening of the mega roll dispenser being somewhere around the level of ones ankles.
Now, when one leans over to try to reach the 2 feet down to get to the bottom of the paper dispenser . . . the toilet thinks you left and flushes.
Yahoo.
I’m sorry, but this only makes me laugh.
Perhaps I am calloused.