Wednesday, December 19, 2012

What idiot designs public restrooms ?

Sorry I had to yell there, but honestly I have to say this.   
What kind of idiot designs the stalls in public restrooms?  
 I'm not talking cleanliness here, although I have a couple of ideas on that one, but just the basic sense of design.   And if I offend you by talking about toilets, don't bother reading any further.

Let me give two examples.   And see if you can follow along with me on this.

I walk into a nice large restroom, lots of aisle space, and then go into the stall and cannot close the door without brushing against, no, almost having to climb on top of the toilet to close the door behind me.   All I needed was an extra inch or two, and it would have been fine.  And there was more than enough aisle space to get that extra two inches.   Of course that might have explained the footprints on top of the toilet seat.   I am not exaggerating, well, not that much, but really?   Who wants to get up close and personal with a toilet, unless it's in your own home and you're the only one who uses it and cleans it every day.  

Example number two.   I'm in a large chain store, run into the restroom, it's actually pretty clean in there, and there is room to close the door without climbing onto top of the toilet, but...  The toilet roll holder protrudes so far into the space you have to perch on the side of the toilet cause there's no room, and you have to reach back to get to the toilet paper.   So here you are, you've managed to hit the toilet, then you have to contort yourself to get to the paper and well, I'm just not built that way anymore.  

And the cleanliness thing?  Well, what's wrong with a poured concrete or other floor that can be hosed down?  Just shut the restroom down every few hours and hose off the floor.  Have  a drain that can handle it and voila!  Clean floors.   Of course it doesn't take care of the other idiots who can foul up a public restroom in seconds flat and who don't even care.  

My complaint today is the space inside the stalls, and I wonder if anyone else feels the same way.   I do care, but for now this is my space and I can complain if I want to.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Young music, old bodies

We were at a local watering hole a week or so ago, and there was a musician, well, two musicians on stage, playing the music of my youth.  And as I walked into the venue, I looked at the audience and saw the graying hair of the people rocking along with the music, and thought, gee that's so cool even the older people are really enjoying this music.  For a moment, well, almost three and a half moments, I was a young person again, then I realized that, hey, I'm one of them. I've got the grey hair, (it may be hiding amongst the golden strands, but it's there).   

I'm looking at the stage seeing the gray hair of the singer, tied back into a ponytail and listening to the music of my youth, time has marched on,  the music has stayed young but the bodies show the years that have passed.   Grey hair, or just thinning hair, grey beards, we're all showing signs of age, but the music, it has stayed young.   

Time was, the audience would have been young, and the singers younger still, but at least we've all aged together, some more gracefully, some not so much.     

Life has happened to many of us, most of us have embraced life, ridden the waves of fortune and despair, and come out of on top.    We've weathered storms, broken marriages, deaths of parents, children, spouses, pets, and we're still here.  We've won and lost, and we're still here.   We've worked, squandered, played, despaired, and we're still here.   

And for a moment or three, as we listen to the music of our youth, we can go back in time, when our skin was still smooth, our bodies young, our ambition fresh and new, and we're still here.