Fixtures are not Fixed

For much of my life, the amenities of any standard "Ladies' Room" were quite predictable and allegedly almost always fancier and cleaner than the standard Men's. I recall my mother pointing out the anti-contagion advantage of paper towels versus those damp and dingy "roller towels". And there were variations between the nice "department store" Ladies Room soap and the school Girls' Lavatory weird granular powder soap with which we would make pasty patties and a mess if we weren't more eager to get out to recess.

But through all the decades of my first quarter century there were only modest changes to bathroom stalls, basins, faucets and how much it cost to acquire supplies if you caught away from home by the arrival of your "monthly". (Another topic someday: all the regional euphemisms for a healthy hormones at work in the female body and the progress to condoms also now being available.)

We have witnessed gradual progress (at glacial pace) in Accessibility--so that anyone who needs to use crutches, a wheel chair, or a stroller in public domains--has become more able to find and use public facilities.

But there has been radical and sometimes confusing progress in the domain of sinks and faucets and some integration of styles that are more international. (eg: all-gender commodes with a "shared" sink.) Some sociology student must already be studying whether collective hand-washing leads to more equity in hand hygiene.

Most amusing to me in the change across decades in the way "upgrades" or "improvements" confound use. Do we wave hands or turn a knob to get the towels? Where do we wag our wrist to get the water to come out? Is this washstand "out of order" or have I just not learned what to do for the soap to arrive. Do we use voice command?

Witnessing a crew of international passengers in a women's room waving, signaling, figuring out the tornado strength air dryer while also checking hair and make up and keeping track of a toddler and a giant suitcase brightened my delayed-flight day as we experimented with them.

Last week I saw a post-it note on a mirror in a fancy hotel that said "It's not broken, wave hand here" with a hand-drawn arrow pointing below. And a local theater did an "upgrade" that resulted in a washroom separated by gender--but where space between the mirrors in the sink area looked through into the opposite gender's sink space---and there was a male friend washing his hands. What's next?

Don't even get me started on mysterious European shower controls or the variety of inventive ways I have heard of folks using bidets. Human imagination and the desire for change has its pros and cons.

Either way change is inevitable and we're better off if we ride the wave with friends and humor. You can enjoy getting or giving Not The Trip We Planned, available with Bookshop or Amazon in paperback and Kindle. https://bookshop.org/p/books/not-the-trip-we-planned-linda-n-edelstein/22155734