Friday

High tech isn’t always very good, especially when it comes to toilets.

Our local Walmart is in the process of a complete overhaul, and that includes the restrooms. They’ve installed spiffy new sinks that spritz out water when you wave your hand in the communal trough, shiny new stalls, and self flushing toilets.

Ideally, they are self flushing. Ideally.

I was in the restroom today, where I sometimes (often, let’s be honest) wind up during excursions to this Big Box Wonder Store, and as I came out of the stall, there stood an older woman, looking confused and a little upset.

“I can’t figure out how to flush,” she said in a near whisper, seemingly embarrassed.

Since the one I had just had my keister on worked perfectly, I assumed hers just needed to be reset. I headed for her stall, and you could see the red creep into her face. In her mind: oh no, someone is going to see my TP! She’ll know what I did! In mine: I pee, too, lady, it’s no big deal… But I could empathize with her. It’s one thing to not care about other people’s pee; it’s a different matter entirely when it’s yours on display.

I pushed the reset and it flushed, showed her where the button was, and I explained to her what to do in the future if the same thing happened. As I went to wash my hands she turned back and stared at the stall, and muttered, “Someone really needs to write that down and paste it on the wall.”

Because truly, not everyone is hip to the newest toys.

I didn’t tell her what would happen if someone dropped a serious load, including a serious amount of toilet paper into one of those self flushers, and it started to flush. She was upset enough as it was…

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