IDIOT
ENGINEERING
I love and
respect engineers--my brother is one of them--but they seem to come in several
flavors: the guys who put men on the moon, and those who are unable to design a
public bathroom that makes sense.
Sure, among
the populace are a few slobbish souls who walk away with nary a backward flush.
So engineers have designed self-flushing toilets that respond without input
from the user. I’ve heard them in public places—The Lonely Commodes, toilets in
empty stalls, flushing away over and over, flushing themselves hoarse, as
though for their own entertainment.
I’ve had nasty
encounters with another variety—the Premature Evacuators. They wait until the
seat cover is nicely placed, then flush away the cover just as you’re unzipping
your pants. Many a time I’ve heard a suspicious noise and whirled around,
throwing my palms onto the seat to save the cover. These are the potties that
demand you use them without wasting time pulling down your pants.
I’ve met the
Nervous Flushers—the ones that sail into action two or three times, just for
the hell of it, before you leave the
stall.
Why, we
wonder, did engineers decide ninety-nine percent of women couldn’t be
trusted? That we were somehow unwilling to
press down the all-important handle? For
one . . . and yes, only one, flush?
A few
engineer-designed sinks are no better. Okay, water is precious and needs to be
conserved. We get it. So they give you cold water that runs only when your
hands are soaped and under the faucet. (I’m okay with that). But in some
bathrooms the sink offers only mini-squirts of warm water, not enough in one
squirt to rinse one well-lathered hand, let alone two. For those I’ve had to
retreat and advance my fingers seven or eight times, and in the end achieved maybe
eight teaspoons of liquid—meaning the rest of the soap had to be wiped away on a
paper towel.
And speaking
of towels. Why did so many bathroom designers position the paper towels across
the room from the sinks . . . leaving us no recourse but to drip, drip, drip,
on the way to drying off? Who, pray tell, mops the slippery gap between sinks
and towels?
Maybe things
are different in men’s bathrooms. I’ll never know. But I do have one
suggestion—that women engineers design the equipment for women’s bathrooms. Why
on earth was this job entrusted to someone who, on most occasions, needs only
one downward zip and one grab and he’s good to go?
XXXXX
P.S. I was
reminded today that dubious engineering is not confined to bathrooms. Kirkland’s delicious “complete
nutrition shake” comes with an attached straw—which is too short for the
container. When you poke it into the hole, the straw drops into the liquid and
disappears. You wonder—who thought this was
a good idea?
And Emily’s
List (whom I love), provides a return envelope which is too small for the
material they want sent back. No matter how you fold them, the sheets don’t
fit.
Last, but
certainly not least—an article about cell phones declares that if you let them
drop too often to zero, soon the battery will be so weak it won’t rouse enough
to take a charge. (Mine is practically comatose). On the other hand, phones do
best, they say, when charged to only sixty or eighty percent. So I ask . . .
what nerd hovers over his charging phone to pull the plug at eighty percent?
For that, you’d have to set your alarm for two a.m.
I’d buy a new
phone—except I’m waiting for one that holds a charge for . . . how about two
whole days?
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