Monday, February 15, 2010

Bathroom Follies

While I'm away I thought I'd share one of my travel follies from a few years ago. This originally appeared at The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree. While our destination was different on that trip I've found that the experience is pretty much the same no matter where we roam.

John and I aren’t quite yet to the point where we need to buy a trailer to tow a blue-boy when we travel but we do make fairly frequent stops. I dread the filthy gas station facilities so we usually try and stop at public rest areas.

Most of the places we’ve stopped have commodes that flush for you. Are they on a timer or something? It’d be really nice if they’d wait until I was done! Am I the only one that this happens to? Then you get out to the sinks. Nobody else seems to have any problem but there I am waving my hands all over trying to get the water to start. At one stop I gave up and moved to the next sink and started waving again only to have the first sink turn on. Then I have to make the huge decision – paper or air dry? I have yet to get one of the new “no touch” paper dispensers to work without touching the red sensor. The air dryers involve more wild hand waving. In the interest of saving both trees and energy I usually opt for the seat of my pants.

We stopped at one rest area that had a little cut out in the wall and was labeled that it would give you water, soap and then air all in one spot if you’d simply place your hands in the wall. It must have been designed by a tall man but since there was nobody else around I decided to give it a try. I lifted my hands up to shoulder level and plunged them into the wall. Of course nothing happened so I started wiggling my fingers and then waving my hands as much as the small space would allow. Luckily for me they had an old fashioned sink. John said they had the same set up on the mens side and it turned on after he’d moved on to the regular sink, so it’s not just me! We’re lavatory challenged as a couple!

At our first hotel things were pretty straight forward. I was quite pleased that I didn’t need an instruction manual to turn on the shower. My luck changed when we got to the resort. The commode worked fine but I could not get water to flow from any of the three sinks. I called the desk and they sent maintenance down. Seems they’d turned off the water to the unit earlier in the day but failed to turn it back on. The unit has a really pretty corner unit - combo jetted tub/shower. I can’t reach the water controls until I get into the tub first! The water was scalding hot so I kept moving it towards the blue. Red for hot, blue for cold right? Wrong! I finally got the temperature right but there was nothing there to switch over to the shower. I pushed and pulled on everything until I gave up, got out of the tub and went in search of John. He got in the tub and proceeded to push and pull on everything to the point that I thought he was going to pull the thing right off of the wall! He finally pulled down on the ring where the water was flowing out and eureka! I later tried to take a bath but couldn’t get the jets to work. John to the rescue again. I simply hadn’t held the button down long enough. A couple of days later John went to take a shower and after getting in the tub discovered that we had no hot water. Hopefully I won’t run into any more new designs on this trip but I have a bottle of hand sanitizer in my purse just in case!

This is also the first trip where I have been provided reading material in the stall. At the resort they have “mini-billboards” on the stall doors so I can think and think about what shows I want to see. At the one of the visitor’s centers they had the schedule of events posted there and that was how I discovered they had a butterfly garden. With informative reading like that you better hope the line doesn’t get too long!

7 comments:

Nancy said...

Thanks for sending me to bed with a chuckle. I can certainly identify with some of the challenges you mentioned.

Alana said...

OMG that is hilarious! I'm laughing thinking "I can identify". It's a comedy sketch when my sister and I go out for the day, either shopping or to the movie. I remember the first time I experienced these new toilets that flush for you, it nearly scare the wits out of me! And the sinks - well, I can never get them to work whereas my sister washed and dried and standing there laughing at me!

Terri O'Connell said...

Have you experienced the toilets that are wrapped in plastic and the plastic moves in a circle so the toilet is always clean.

I got a good laugh thinking of the stories my one cousin tells about her Mom with the same outcome, nothing but hands waving to get the water to work!

Tipper said...

Loved this post-you made me smile. I've done the hand waving thing more than once!

Charley "Apple" Grabowski said...

I'm happy you all enjoyed this!

Terri - This was the first trip where I've run into the seats with the moving plastic wrap! I even got the sensor to work on the first try. What will they think of next?

GrannyPam said...

Congratulations, on being among Family Tree Magazine's "Top 40"! Glad to see some of the blogs I voted for made it!

Gini said...

Congratulations Apple, I had no doubts you would be among the top 40! So happy for you!