Adventures in Bathroom Sitting

Public bathrooms have always held some level of horror for me. I think my fear began when I got my first period in the bathroom at Stew Leonard’s: my mother proceeded to shriek with glee and share the news with all the other women in the bathroom (one of whom actually high-fived me as I left the stall crying). There has been an advent of new tools designed to make public bathrooms more palatable to people. I consider the efficacy of various additions:
1) The Electric Hand Dryer – Why can they not regulate the power level of these things? When I was in the bathroom at Ace Bar (where I may or may not have been coercing one of my best friends to drink from a flask) I went to dry my hands and was met with a force usually saved for Khloe Kardashian bum rushing an overturned hot-dog stand. The sheer force they have harnessed in that machine seems sufficient to propel a MiniCooper. Is this necessary? Are people trying to blow the skin completely off their hands? While I like the automatic dryer, I don’t need to give my hands the “skydiving experience” when I’m just trying to get back to my beer.
2) Cloth Towel Rolls – these are the things that “dispense” a cloth towel and then let it loop back up into the box. Please lord, explain to me how these got past the Department of Sanitation. I know that box isn’t big enough to hold a fully functioning Asian dry cleaner inside, so unless they make that box transparent and show me exactly what kind of miracle process going on in there, I am not gonna trust that the towel is going to magically come out cleansed of people-germs. Thanks Georgia-Pacific, but some of us are on to your bullshit.
3) The Motion-Sensor sink – I feel like a total idiot using this thing. Only half of the time can I figure out where the evil genius sink creators have hidden the elusive sensor, and when I can, I stand there waving my hands around like a mentally disabled magician.
4) The Push-Button sink – What purpose does this thing serve? If the goal is making the bathroom more sanitary, shouldn’t the water run for long enough to actually wash your hands? When you need another person to assist in the hand-washing process, it seems like there was some kind of design failure.

5) The Bathroom Assistant – While I appreciate job-creation in all its forms, I can’t imagine why this is necessary. The only place people should need bathroom assistance is in a nursing home. What would be real assistance is having someone come in the stall with me, hold my drink, wipe my butt, and pull up my skinny jeans. If they’re not going to do this, then I don’t think I need them to unwrap my $1 piece of Trident or spray me with Calgon “Air Fantasies”. These guys should probably be replaced by security guards since their real function at most places is to ensure that two people aren’t going into a stall together (homophobia or drug-enforcement? Your call.).
6) The Green soap – what is this liquidy, toxic colored substance and why has Johnson & Johnson never sold anything like this? How am I supposed to trust a hand-cleansing product that looks like the stuff that turned a rat into Splinter on TMNT? (if you don’t know what this is, I’m not even gonna go there)
Am I missing anything? Feel free, readers, to share other ridiculous/disgusting/inefficient public bathroom tools. For now, I’m going to continue to squat, open doors with paper towels, and hand sanitize.

-Lindsay