2015 and the livin' is lazy

My wonderful cousin Rusty sends me a copy of the column he writes for his local newspaper every week. I guess it falls under "observational humor with an East Texas accent."

Anyway, the one I just read is about how fat we have become because we basically don't have to do anything. After mentioning all sorts of modern conveniences that were not around when he and I were young and dinosaurs roamed the earth, he says this:

They have faucets that turn themselves on when you put your hands under them.  They have paper towel dispensers that give you a towel when you wave your hand in front of it.  They even have commodes that flush themselves.  Heck, I’ve gotten off of a trip where I’ve spent too much time in airport bathrooms, and when I get home I put my hands under the faucet and have waited, wonderin’ where the water was.

This struck me because it recalled something I did a few years ago after the expansion of the library where I worked. Among the many niceties in the new arrangement were lights that turned themselves on and off. In some rooms, they didn't come on immediately, but we all learned to wave our arms in the air to activate the mechanism.

After a few months of this, I went into the bathroom at church. It was dark and I waved my arms in the air and waited. Nothing happened. It took me a moment to realize that I had to flip the switch.