Technololgy and the Modern Man

As one gets older, it gets harder and harder to keep up with the new technology, or as you're forced to say once you turn 40, "These newfangled electified gagets." However, I'm not too worried about keeping up with everything. They pretty much idiot proof everything now-a-days, unlike in the time when I grew up, where toys and gadgets were only really fun if they could actually hurt you. Dan Akroyd's "Bag of Glass" really isn't far off many of the toys of my youth. Today's whipper snappers are a generation of "plug and play" people, who will never know the joy and excitement of taking three hours to make a mixed tape, or the wonder of using a public phone (Wonder, as in, "I wonder what this sticky stuff is on the phone receiver?")

However, the technology that worries me is much more mundane. Unfortunately, a lot of it happens to be in the bathroom, which my loyal reader knows I already have personal problems with. When I was a kid (Did I just say that? Just shoot me now.) you didn't have your self flushing toilets, automatic paper towel dispensers, automatic hot air hand dryers, and of course, automatic sinks.

But now you do.

Or you don't.

And that's the problem.

I'm leaving bathrooms with the water running, since their faucet wasn't automatic. I'm placing my hands under the the sink and waiting, only to notice that this one has actually little spinny hand things (technical plumbing term) for turning on the water. It's difficult to look cool when one is talking to the faucet in the bathroom. The youngsters just shake their heads and walk away. Plus, half the automatic faucets need your hands in a sight zone about 3 millimeters wide, so you end up moving your hands around the sink like a disco dancer.

I'm mostly having issues with paper towel dispensers. I feel as I'm begging for towels, as I place both my hands together and slowly move them below the towel dispenser and wait in anticipation. Will it work? Will the guy behind me start screaming I'm an idiot? For crying out loud, I can actually program a VCR, yet I can't get the towels to come out.

In one restroom, there was no little black indicator or a little silver winder at all. I proceeded to move my hands around the dispenser as if it were a crystal ball, my son looking on in anticipation.

"Where are the towels, Daddy," asks the kid who expects that I know everything, who also has a huge thing about wet hands.

Channeling my best James T. Kirk, "I...just...don't...know."

(Crying)"Daddy, you weren't supposed to disappoint me until my teen years!"

(unable to swear, must calm down) "Dear God, why hast this towel dispenser forsaken me?"

Turns out if you rubbed this towel dispensers belly, it actually dispensed its product. How the @#$# am I supposed to figure this stuff out?

And how about those automatic toilets? My kid won't even get near one, for fear of it flushing when he's on it or even near it. And as you know, if the toilet flushes when you're on it, the monkeys living in the sewer can get you.

Finally, I've even been in a rec center shower that had no levers or handles of any sort. Now if you want embarrassment, trying to figure out how a shower at the rec center works as you squat naked and look at the one little piece jutting out of the wall. Do I do the wave? Nope. Maybe if I stand in front of it? No way. Should I be moving? Nope. What if I do a little shimmy? Nope. Why is that guy across the way showering? More importantly, did he notice the shimmying?

Wait! What if I push the little round thing? Water! Water! Holy @#$! Really @#$@#ing hot water!

Now I'm jumping up and down trying to figure out how to turn it off!

First squatting naked (which of course, is a major no-no). Now jumping up and down.

At this point, I'm hoping the guy in the next shower hasn't done any prison time, as I notice that the entire locker room is empty.

Of course, I can't actually change the water temperature. It's either on or off, plug and play, hot or scalding.

In my case, squatting or jumping...

That's my problem. Since EVERYTHING isn't automated, it seems that there is a heck of a lot thinking that has to go on in a bathroom now days. I don't want to think in a bathroom, I'm too busy trying not to make eye contact.

Don't even get me going on automatic doors. Since they got rid of those black foot sensors, you're left to guess if it's going to open or not without actually incurring a concussion from the door either opening up and smashing you in the head or just plain smacking into it when it turns out it isn't automatic at all.

Plug and play.

Or not.

Think about it, we used to control the bathroom fixtures. Now, they sort of control us. Maybe they'll work, maybe they won't...

Maybe these devices will rebel and we're left in a post-apocalyptic world, fighting urinals and faucets for control of humanity.

Ohhh. That might be my big Hollywood movie script right there. The Terminautoflushinator.