ladyofastolat (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ladyofastolat) wrote2014-07-07 03:41 pm
ladyofastolat) wrote2014-07-07 03:41 pm
Entry tags:
Toilet technology
Today's rant is about automatic taps in public toilets. I do understand that these have been put in to protect our newly-washed hands from having to touch the tap to turn it off, thus contaminating ourselves with the assorted nasties that were on the hands of the hundreds of people who have turned it on before us. However, the magical touch-free sensor approach is REALLY ANNOYING because it HARDLY EVER WORKS!
You approach the line of sinks, and wave your hands under one of the taps. Nothing happens. You move them nearer and wave them again, then further away. Still nothing. You wave fast, then slow. You do the hokey-cokey and you turn around. Still nothing. You intone magical incantations. You speak "friend." Still nothing, so you move to the next tap, and repeat the process, and continue down the line.
Sometimes you never find the way to persuade the mute and merciless tap to dispense its bounty. But sometimes - how, you do not know and never will - you accidentally hit on precisely the right method to summon the water. Did you put your hands at the precise 3.57 inch distance that is demanded? Was it something to do with the speed you danced the hokey-cokey? Either way, you suddenly have a huge gush of water... all over your cuffs, nowhere near your hands. It cannot be replicated.
Or sometimes, you get presented with a single hole in the wall, that dispenses soap, water and air in a pre-arranged sequence that cannot be interrupted. There will inevitably be far fewer of these things than there are toilet cubicles. The ones I queued (im)patiently for today were branded as "Wallgate," which sounds like some terrible wall-related scandal. This is apt. The machines insisted on dispensing what felt like two hours supply of air. Even customers who wanted to erase every last hint of dampness from their hands ended up walking away while the air was still blasting out, causing the next person to stand there, twitchy with impatience, waiting for the chance to wave their hands wildly in the void, mutter magical words, and be rewarded with a jet of soap on their cuffs.
You approach the line of sinks, and wave your hands under one of the taps. Nothing happens. You move them nearer and wave them again, then further away. Still nothing. You wave fast, then slow. You do the hokey-cokey and you turn around. Still nothing. You intone magical incantations. You speak "friend." Still nothing, so you move to the next tap, and repeat the process, and continue down the line.
Sometimes you never find the way to persuade the mute and merciless tap to dispense its bounty. But sometimes - how, you do not know and never will - you accidentally hit on precisely the right method to summon the water. Did you put your hands at the precise 3.57 inch distance that is demanded? Was it something to do with the speed you danced the hokey-cokey? Either way, you suddenly have a huge gush of water... all over your cuffs, nowhere near your hands. It cannot be replicated.
Or sometimes, you get presented with a single hole in the wall, that dispenses soap, water and air in a pre-arranged sequence that cannot be interrupted. There will inevitably be far fewer of these things than there are toilet cubicles. The ones I queued (im)patiently for today were branded as "Wallgate," which sounds like some terrible wall-related scandal. This is apt. The machines insisted on dispensing what felt like two hours supply of air. Even customers who wanted to erase every last hint of dampness from their hands ended up walking away while the air was still blasting out, causing the next person to stand there, twitchy with impatience, waiting for the chance to wave their hands wildly in the void, mutter magical words, and be rewarded with a jet of soap on their cuffs.