“I am pretty sure the sink is fucking with me.”  This is the thought that I had a few weeks ago when I was simply trying to rinse some soap off of my hands in the sink of a public restroom.  I am convinced that there is a hidden camera filming people with sudsy hands trying to seduce the automatic sink into providing just enough water to rinse the soap.  Over the years I have developed several techniques and they all work equally inconsistently.  

1. Just hold and wait: This is where you dutifully place your hands under the faucet and wait for the mechanism to work like it’s supposed to. You hold your hands there for some undetermined yet finite amount of time until you try one of the other methods like the…
2. Quick swipe or sneak attack:  This is when you try to quickly get your hands into place as though you might surprise the sensor and trick it into giving you some water, or…
3. Maybe if I stand closer: Maybe it needs to sense my whole body so if I stand closer then it will notice that my hands are there, until finally…
4. Frantic shaking (aka “Just give me some fucking water!”): By now another soon to be  victim has noticed your antics and this happens at the same time that you either resort to begging for water or demanding it. Either way your cool factor is at nil and you just don’t care.

Even if one of these techniques happens to work there is always the chance that it won’t work long enough to do a darn bit of good.  No matter the outcome you move on to the next phase, the drying process.

If towels are the drying option then this phase consists of multiple techniques as well with varying outcomes. The four techniques above can be repeated with slight alterations with of course the last one being “Just give me a fucking towel!”

Then there are the hand dryers.  I have a love/hate relationship with the hand dryers.  When they are the high powered ones that work, I love them.  Any other type I hate.  I am truly baffled as to why the hand dryers (I use the term loosely) that huff on your hands like someone cleaning glasses still exist.  WHO HAS EVER HUNG IN THERE WITH ONE OF THESE UNTIL THEIR HANDS WERE ACTUALLY DRY?  Frankly I don’t think that they were ever designed to dry hands.  I think they were just meant to bore you or piss you off until you walked away wiping your hands on your pants.  

My experiences with these automatic features has been in women’s restrooms so I have no idea (nor do I want to know) what goes on in the men’s rooms.  But I will say I truly respect the women who wash their hands and screw the paper towels or hand dryers and go straight for the pants or better yet use the excess water to tidy up a few loose hairs.  

So I didn’t go there with the toilets, I will save that for another day, but suffice it to say that we have all experienced the suction force equivalent to an F-5 tornado pulling our asses into the sewer lines.