I recently attended a “Girls’ Night Out” event with a good friend. It
was at a local movie theater where they had free appetizers, free drinks and
featured a free movie, Julie & Julia,
starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. Sure, it was a flick I’ve seen before, but
I knew I would enjoy watching it again. Plus…did I mention it was free?
The event was sponsored by a local bank and, as mentioned,
it was a “Girls’ Night Out” gathering, so, naturally, there were only women in
attendance. (All together now: “Du-uh!”)
You know what they say about groups of women – that we all go to the
restroom together? Yeah, well, I was
grateful this did not occur because, believe me, it would’ve been utter chaos.
One of the dispensers ran out of paper towels, so hordes of women had
to hold up our dripping hands as if we’d just scrubbed for surgery and cross
the room to the second dispenser to find paper towels. It was either that, or dry our hands on our
clothes – and genteel ladies such as ourselves simply don’t do this. Very
often, anyway.
By the second time I used the restroom, there were big puddles of water
on the floor where hands had dripped whilst on the walk across the room to the
second paper towel dispenser. Thank
goodness no one slipped.
In retrospect, it would’ve been a good idea if even one of us mentioned
to movie theatre personnel the paper towel shortage situation. But evidently
none of us did. Perhaps our minds were
on the free drinks. Or the free jalapeno poppers.
But a rather curious phenomenon happened during my first potty
break. See, the toilets were of the
automatic flushing variety, so I assumed everything else in the restroom was
modernized.
Not so much.
I walked to the sink and held my hand under the soap dispenser thinking
it was automatic. But then I pretty quickly
noticed the button I needed to push to dispense the soap. Oops. I furtively looked
around to see if anyone had noticed my gaffe and, when I saw the coast was
clear, I quickly pushed the button and started lathering up.
But then, when I held my soapy hands under the faucet waiting for the
water to automatically start flowing, nothing happened.
As we all have experienced from time to time, automatic sinks are
sometimes uncooperative. You can flap your hands underneath them forever and
they simply won’t work. So you move on to the next sink. And – voila! – water flows over your hands
that by now have dried soap sticking to them. But of course the water doesn’t
run long enough to scrub the dried soap off your hands and you have to redo the
flapping thing at least once more.
These sinks, however, were not of the automatic variety. And there I was looking like a fool flapping
my hands under not one, but two
faucets. Sheesh.
Fortunately, I still had the room to myself. So I didn’t appear foolish
to anyone but myself. And, well…now, you.
At any rate, I finally decided that the only automated equipment in the
restroom was the toilet. So I stepped over to the paper towel dispenser
determined not to make the same mistake. So I searched for the handle, to no avail. Ack!
Okay, so automatic toilets AND automatic paper towel dispensers. Got
it.
Yet, waving my hands in front of this one produced no paper towels since
the thing was empty. Heaving a huge
sigh, I seriously considered wiping my hands on my slacks and getting the heck
outta there. But I didn’t.
Instead, with dripping hands I walked over to the dispenser across the
room, flapped my hand in front of the box and, magically, a paper towel
appeared.
Who knew the simple act of washing one’s hands required a degree in
engineering?
As more women entered the restroom, they all duplicated my moves. We
looked like a bunch of crazy people, flapping our hands under appliances trying
to get them to work and, finally, manually turning on and off faucets and soap dispensers.
I tried being helpful by telling people that the first towel dispenser
was empty, but did they believe me?
Nooo. They all had to prove to themselves that the dispenser was,
indeed, empty. And then they walked over
to the full towel dispenser and searched for the handle.
It was kind of comical.
But I’ve decided that there should be rules when restrooms are designed.
If you’re going to have an automatic flushing toilet, then everything should be automatic. Or, if you’re going to have a manual
soap dispenser and faucet, the paper towel dispenser should also be manual.
Modern life has its advantages. Like theoretically there would be fewer
opportunities for germs to hop on and hitch a ride if we aren’t touching toilet
handles and soap dispensers and water faucets and paper towel dispensers all
the time. But I sometimes long for the
simpler life when I could walk into a bathroom and know exactly how everything
operated.
No excessive hand flapping required.
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