Friday, January 7, 2011

Bathroom Technology

A Dollar’s Worth
By Alisa Dollar

New technology is a big deal. The most updated, speed demon, exclusive computer in a matter of months is outdated. Same for TVs and cell phones.

The ladies room is one area of technology I never dreamed would irritate me to no end.

Used to one could go to there and everything was easy.

The toilet paper dispensers didn’t look like flight panels to decipher and toilets were manually flushed. Now buttons are hidden and sometimes on the wall. The scariest is “no hands”---meaning the thing goes crazy by standing up!

Water flows readily by putting hands underneath the faucet. This is only after you have looked and squeezed anything looking like it turned on or off. 

Soap dispensers vary. One can push, pull, slide or put a hand underneath and soap automatically releases. Soap used to be soap. It looked, smelled and washed like soap. Now big squishes of foam blobs out and it doesn’t look like soap. It smells too pretty and we can only hope it’s really soap.

By the time the soap is on and rubbed in and around, the water’s off and you find yourself standing in front of a mirror with hands similar to a doctor’s pose. Only difference, they look professional and you have soap foam and water running down to and dripping off elbows.

My personal favorite is the way in which you can dry those hands. There are so many ways and each one a polar opposite of the last one.

There’s the blow and go. I dislike these. There is just something wrong with blow drying drippy hands. Blow dryers are for hair.

I prefer the handle that’s obvious. I spent so much time looking for a way to get paper out on one machine my hands were air dried. A lady who was waiting finally showed me it was a swirly hard-to-see thing on the side.

The ones I really don’t like are those that require a swift move of the hand. There is always a picture showing one “how to” but they don’t always work for me. I swish here and there and at one point I felt I could give the Karate Kid a run for his money.

Men’s rooms must not be as complicated because husband always asks, “What took you so long?”

I don’t even try to explain.

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