Musings at Altitude

I’m back to my travels now and took up my usual position in the Red Carpet Club a couple hours prior to takeoff.  During one of my breaks from work, I went into the men’s room which had recently been remodeled.  After doing my business, I went to the sink and noticed where the bulk of the remodeling occurred – at the wash basins:

As with just about everything in the world today (with the exception of the truck of a good friend of mine which still has handles to roll up and down the windows and has no automatic locks), the soap dispenser and the faucet are now both automatic.  I reached over and got some soap and then stuck my hands under the faucet to get some water.  As with most automatic faucets, you have to find the sweet spot of the senser to get the water to come out.  I moved my hands to the spot that the water dispensed, and as the water came out I also noticed that the soap came out too.  I pulled my hands away from the water to finish the wash and stuck them back under the faucet and sure enough the soap came out again causing me to repeat my wash and attempt to rinse again.  After trying a couple of times to rinse without soap coming out, I realized that if I slowly moved my hands one certain way and entered from the right just enough to trigger the water that I could get just a little bit of water without having soap come out. 

As I finished my wash, I noticed that only inches away from the wash basin was the paper towel dispenser (not automatic), now built into the counter top with the trash hole adjacent to it.  As you might guess, water was spilling into the paper towel holder since it was only inches from the sink and flush with the counter top.  I smiled at this too as I pulled out a few paper towels to get to a dry one to allow me to finish up and leave.

Now I must admit that I’m one that approves of automated devices of just about any nature and I definitely enjoy the placement of things in the proper location to achieve the maximum efficiency or the optimum result (I too get frustrated when I have to walk 15 or 20 feet for a paper towel or hand dryer with water dripping off my hands).  But I had to smile as I stepped back and looked at this particular arrangement – the ultimate in efficiency and yet one step closer to insanity!

PS. I apologize for how blurry the picture is – had to take it quickly so as not to disturb the other folks in this particular men’s room doing their business!