I bow down in defeat and applaud the automated bathroom. Mad props on making me look like a dumb ass.
Let me first say that, in theory, I am in no way opposed to the automatic toilet flush. It’s ingenious for daycares and bars. I can’t even begin to think of the number of times I walked in after a child and wished I hadn’t. And I’m not gonna lie, when you’re seeing double or triple, it’s nice not to have to bend over to hit the little handle accurately. Ironic isn’t it that drunken, stumbling idiots (myself included) and small children both need help flushing? But those are the up-sides of ATF. The problems, unfortunately, outnumber the good.
For instance, someone, not me of course, has to urinate. She sits down briefly to read the new cuss words and random proclamations of love on the stall doors only to have the temperamental timer set off the flush mechanism repeatedly so splashing her derriere and leaving her wet-assed with only the ever-so-favorite-1-ply toilet tissue to soak it up. And quite frankly, the t.p. absorbs like a stupid kid in physics class! Nobody likes to leave feeling soggy.
Nor does anyone want to leave the bathroom poorer, but it happens. Thanks to the ATF, my inebriated friend goes into the stall, drops drawers and magically, her cell phone takes a nose dive out of her back pocket and promptly into the bowl. To make matters worse, our favorite temperamental toilet sends her phone off to swim with the fishes so leaving said friend with a 46 year contract renewal on her crappy Sprint phone.
And although being an indentured servant to Sprint and being swampy-assed are not desirable, it is only a matter of time before the inevitable happens. It’s Pavlov’s Dog Theory all over again. We, the elite, become frequent users of automatically-timed toilets and before you know it: we’ve forgotten to manually make the remains vanish in non-automated circumstances. Ug! That’s simply all I can say to that! I’ve watched it come to pass, so to speak. I kid you not.
If only that were the end of it, oh no. It’s not. So as you slosh out of the stall, your damp tushy stuck to your crumpled granny panties, you meet the automated sink. Just as unfriendly, you find yourself flailing your hands in an African dance movement to get the water to turn on. When it doesn’t, you resort to germ-ifying yourself by tapping, slapping, and, scarily enough, caressing the faucet in hopes that water will spew forth. If you are so lucky as to induce the 20 below zero water of the gods in mid-January, you still have to dry your hands. Again, you start with jazz hands, move into the flight of the bumblebee, and end with a finale of hand puppets as you attempt to set off the infrared light of paper towels. It is then and only then that 2 inches of recycled cardboard slides out in supposed paper towel form leaving you to then wipe the rest of the liquid on the side of your jeans so making you look like you pissed your pants, when in fact, that might have been easier.
When all is said and done though, I can only say 2 thumbs up for the foaming soap dispenser and give my regards to Sir Thomas Crapper. I guess it’s better to be a dumbass with a clean, slightly sodden ass than to have no ass-planter at all.
Bolton Carley's BS-O-Rama 