I feel I’m caught in between an automatic and manual world of hand washing in the public restrooms. When I find myself in new surroundings, I stand too long in front of manual water faucets just waiting like a princess for the water to sense my existence. Sometimes I stand in front of the mirror feeling mildly insecure about my relationships with objects and their inability to sense me and my needs. Then I realize this faucet expects me to actually use force, how barbaric.  I turn the water on, roll my eyes, and secretly resent the faucet for making me feel stupid or making me exert, I really can’t decide which.

I do the same dance with the soap dispensers, but I find sometimes when the faucets are manual, the soap dispensers have been upgraded to automatic and this takes me off guard and I feel attacked. Or the opposite happens, I hold my hands under the soap and wait like I do with the water, and I realize it does not have an automatic mechanism and it might be mocking me. I then push the button just a little too hard to seek my revenge and pretend my hands are just really, really dirty when I am flooded with soap.

I find myself waving more at paper towels than I do at actual humans on the street. My waving is often rewarded with just one very small paper towel. A second attempt of waving even more vigorously produces nothing, and I am often forced to use my jeans to dry my hands instead. All the paper towel machines I encounter have a message written on them stating the costumer does not have to touch it in order for it to dispense. Just simply wave a hand near the sensor. Liars! Just like the sicko who likes to stand too close to the exit on the subway, forcing all the in-coming and out-going passengers to rub past him. I believe he must have created this paper towel holder, cause this machine will not spit out a towel unless it is mildly molested.

Come to think of it, I would much rather just dry my hands on that never ending festering old-school cloth towel hand-drying dispenser. You know, the one with the same cloth just rotates around for centuries and looks like it has never been changed. It says a lot about me that I will risk a few more germs than look like a jackass waving at or fondling a paper napkin machine, but I feel I need to draw the line somewhere, I guess.

The other option is the jet engine hand dryer that causes hearing loss. I am perfectly fine with buying tickets to a rock concert and dealing with tinnitus after, but I am not totally okay with ringing in my ears being a after-effect of a bathroom visit. I have seen the new hand drying machines send happy toddlers into convulsing piles of tantrums….wait, no. That was me.

Do I have a point to make? No. I hate to think the inventors invent for the the first world inhabiters because we are so far gone that we need special considerations when it comes to faucets, soap and hand-drying. Next? I am actually hoping for an public restroom emotional fluffer who greets me as I am leaving, to pump me up for next time much like a mother does with her toddler after a successful potty training experience. This hologram would say the following: “Ms. Solt, the way you made the faucets flow, the soap dispensers your bitch, and the manner in which you tickled the paper towel sensor made me want to run for the nearest stall myself! Bravo! I cannot wait to see how you master these sanitizing beasts at your next visit!”