Automated Sinks & Soap

I went on my little rant about automatic toilets and meant every word but that isn't the end. While I was at church the other day I stopped to use the facilities and had a hard time getting soap. The thing was automated and kept dumping soap on the counter and not my hand. After a few attempts it finally worked but then I felt like I needed to try to clean up the mess. As I tried to get the soap from under the thing and dumped more soap on my hand about three more times. Jeez it was frustrating. I did manage to get the soap cleaned up and off my hands too.

Since the incident at the church I have had a few more incidents with automated sinks and soaps which made me remember prior incidents with these wonderfully frustrating things. Faucets in a public restrooms in my mind are covered in the most disgusting germs ever. The beauty of the automated systems are that we don't have to touch those germ covered things!

Then they came up with motion sensors in the soap dispensers. I am not too sure of why we need those. The tap to the dispensers are probably as disgusting as the faucets but they are dispensing the soap to wash those things away! The dispensers seem to work most of the time but when they don't it frustrates a little.

Unlike the toilets the automated sinks and soaps never startle me, splash me or make me feel lazy. They actually make me feel safer by allowing me not to touch public germs. I am grateful not to have to touch every germ left behind by others and not to share mine with them. I am not a germ-a-phobe but I don't like the idea of sharing germs with everyone either.

Still I am happy to have them. I just wish they would work better!

Automatic Toilets

Do we really need automatic flush toilets? I wonder sometimes at our own laziness. Some might say inventiveness but the jury is still out for me.

The automatic flush is nice. Now we don't have to try to touch something a million germ filled hands have touched to flush the toilet when we are done. Isn't that why we wash our hands afterward? I mean it isn't hard to flush a toilet.

Then there is the quickness or in some cases slowness of the auto-flush toilets. Sometimes I can't even turn around and drop my pants before the thing is flushing my seat cover away. I mean really folks I should not have to drop my trousers before placing the seat cover in order to be able to sit on a covered seat. Worse I think is when I can't figure out if the flush is delayed flush or if the flush isn't working. Nothing like reaching for the button thinking the auto-flush isn't working to find it works just in time to splash you pant leg or arm as you try to execute your own manual flush. I have taken to using my cane to push the button.

Since the onset of these auto-flush toilets I have seen more and more unflushed toilets. It is like we are so used to them being there and working right we just don't bother to pay attention and make sure our waste does not become a problem for someone else. I almost always wait. When I am in a big rush I listen and when I don't hear the flush as I sprint to the sink then I wonder if the flush was delayed . I almost always go back and check if I don't hear it.

I think I am getting to be one of the lazy ones. I almost get annoyed when the old fashioned toilets are there. It is not that I mind flushing it is just something I have become accustomed to not have to do these days until I get into a stall without an updated toilet. Then I wonder why they haven't updated the toilets. Have I become judgmental?

The flush in public toilets are so powerful these days when they flush there is a big splash factor. I never know if the wet on the seat is the result of poor aim of the previous user or the power flush. So I find myself wiping them only to be splashed when the automatic flusher sees my shadow move to clear the seat.

The jury is still out for me. When they work right I love them when they don't I just shake my head and wonder.