September 1, 2005

• Foiling the Urinal from Hell:  Circumventing Technology Gone Mad

  
  

  I am not a complete Luddite–there is some technology I actually approve of.  For instance, after forty years of driving cars with stick shifts, I got one with automatic transmission.  And I recently got one of those neat atomic clock thingies that resets itself every day by picking up a signal from the cesium clock at Fort Collins, Colorado.  (Okay, it is supposed to do that–we are too far away to pick up the signal, I think, but it IS a really neat clock, plus it has an indoor-outdoor thermometer AND it tells the phase of the moon.  But I digress.)

  
  

  Technology is a great servant, but a lousy master.  Take automated men’s rooms–please!  The one at the Big Lake library is the worst.  The faucets come on automaticlly–thus giving you no control over water temperature or flow rate.  The toilet flushes automatically–while I am still sitting on the damned thing.  And the urinal tends to run forever.

  
  

  The other day, I went in and the damned urinal was not only flushing but gushing, all over the floor.  I notified the librarian, she moaned and rolled her eyes, said “Oh no–not again!”  So she rolled up her sleeves and went into the men’s room.  I don’t know what she did, but the next time I went in, the urinal was singing “Bicycle Built for Two.”

  
  

  But I figured out how to beat the system.  Now, when I have to take a leak, I go into the handicapped stall, and stand well to the side of the bowl–the sensor doesn’t even know I’m there, hee hee.

  
  

  Of course, I do have to wipe  a lot of piss off the floor when I’m done, but it is well worth the trouble.

  • 5:06 pm
  • 3 Comments