Can I get a towel? @&%! Little help here?
I stopped at a public rest area last weekend. A sign on the wall read: “To serve you better, this washroom is fully automated”.
This reminded me of a classic Twilight Zone episode, in which giant aliens come to earth to help the human race. Or so they say. World leaders are relieved when a cryptographer translates the title of one of their books, and it seems to confirm their benevolent intent. The book title is: To Serve Man.
Fast-forward several months. People are lining up at a way-station to board transport ships for the aliens’ planet. The cryptographer, who has been working all this time to translate the rest of the book, rushes in. “Don’t get on the spaceships!” he cries. As the aliens wrestle him to the ground he gasps “To Serve Man….is a cookbook!”
I was a bit skeptical as I entered the washroom.
The adventure began with the automatic toilet. This is a precision instrument. The slightest shift in body mass sets off the flush feature, resulting in a delightfully cooling splash of public-toilet water on the nether regions. You are guaranteed no less than 4 flushes while doing your business. When you’re finished and actually stand up…nothing.
I next approached the automated sink, which looked like a horse trough. I stuck my hands under a spigot… nothing. I waved up, down and sideways. Still no water. Another visitor suggested the sensor can’t “see” you if you’re wearing white. Or black. Or if the moon is in the seventh house and Marilyn McCoo aligns with Mars. I had immediate results at the next trough, though. It shot out a geyser from three feet away that drenched my entire front.
The automated soap dispenser was empty. But I could tell it worked just fine because of the impressive soap stalactite running down the wall to the floor.
Finally, I arrived at the hot-air hand dryers. These have little signs explaining how they’re good for the environment, and “eliminate the hazards of disease transmitted by paper towel waste”. Riiiiight. I know the CDC ranks paper towel disease right up there with smallpox as a threat to world health.
I want to save the planet as much as the next guy, but I miss paper towels. For on thing, you could use them to open the door, protecting yourself from contamination from the last visitor who may have forgotten to wash. Paper towels also do one thing that hot-air dryers don’t – get your hands dry.
This restroom had the new accelerator hand dryers. These STILL don’t dry your hands, but now they don’t do it in only 10 seconds. The force of the air pushes your skin around so you look like an astronaut hitting mach 2. Which is only fitting because they are so loud they break the sound barrier.
As I opened the washroom door with my elbow, I had to acknowledge the one benefit the modern facility has over its old fashioned predecessor.
Now it’s easy to spot the slobs who don’t wash up.
They’re the only ones walking out of the restroom with dry hands.
Peg-o-Leg's Ramblings 
My sympathies for having to stop at a public rest area in the first place, which very well might constitute a 5th Dimension, in which case Marilyn McCoo could have been peeing in the stall next to you.
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I think that WAS her, singing “down, down and away…”
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On the other hand, I was much impressed by the hand dryers I came across in a mall near me the other day. Those babies could strip paint from sheer wind velocity alone.
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My point exactly – the new, super dryers knock small children off their feet, but they don’t dry your hands!
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The guy in your picture looks a lot like my last blind date!! 🙂 And/or the type of “people” you are likely to encounter at 2am in a roadside rest area!!
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I didn’t know you were seeing Lurch’s cosmic cousin. How’s that working out?
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Those stupid toilets annoy the crap out of me.
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tee hee hee
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I instantly thought of the Twilight Zone episode when I saw the title to your blog. I love that one. Also DON’T love those so called automatic toilets, sinks and hand drying machines. They’re as bad as the Word software that thinks it knows what I want to type or format next. Grrrr…
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Rod Serling was a genius. The auto-bathroom inventor guy was not!
I’m with you on the word software, except that now I can’t spell without it.
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I actually love those high velocity hand dryers, I love to stand there and watch the skin on my hands move all around and see how skinny my fingers would be if they had no fat on them. Sometimes I just stand there after they are dry moving my fat fingers around, looking at the loose skin….surely this is not good for the environment…electricity and all…but better than those old fashioned ones that don’t dry at all!
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I bet those dryers are speeding up the skin-loosening process that happens to all of us (or so I hear) as we age. We might have grounds for a lawsuit!
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Oh, Lisa, you made me laugh out loud! Kudos 🙂
T
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I was thinking she was on some kind of bad trip, standing around watching the skin melt off her hands. Maybe we need to talk her down?
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There’s a topic for you, Peg. Artificial Intelligence. It’s called that for a reason. Many films to show the point. After all, who actually programs those machines to do what they’re supposed to do? Are they sado-masochists wanting to be hurt or hurt others??? (I get those two ‘preferences’ confused). See what would happen if we let all those machines communicate between themselves – Terminator comes to mind.
Random thoughts on your blog… Love ya,
T
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“These STILL don’t dry your hands, but now they don’t do it in only 10 seconds.” – Beautiful!
I would have thought about that Twilight Zone episode while reading that bathroom sigh, too. Then I would have thought, “What are you serving me with? A nice Chianti?”
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Oh I love this! It deals with my very favorite topic! Thanks for linking me through the way back machine — nearly 7 years! Wow!
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Hellloooo, Time Machine Elyse! You haven’t changed a bit in 7 years!
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(waving excitedly) Helllllllllllloooooooooo back-in-time Peggles! Love this post.
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