Dispensing with good taste

If we could apply some of the same principles used by manufacturers of toilet paper dispensers to our country’s ports and immigration checkpoints, our concerns about national security would be over.

Bathroom tissue located in public restrooms is way more secure than it needs to be, if you ask me. American industry has developed highly engineered systems mounted in our nation’s stalls that are designed to allow users the absolute minimum amount of product while simultaneously making that product maddening to get at. These hulking plastic cases dribble a thin, single-ply dangle of paper out of their interior with a reluctance disturbingly similar to what I’m feeling in my own mid-section while trying to wrestle a few squares free.

Managers of these communal bathroom facilities – in restaurants, offices, government buildings – know this is a service they have to provide free of charge to their customers. So they’re obviously interested in limiting their expense as much as possible without putting their drapes and other nearby textiles in jeopardy. I sympathize with their situation in these hard economic times, but I also have similarly urgent hygiene concerns that need to be addressed. I decided to learn more about the companies that build and market these stingy dispensers.

Not surprisingly, most of them are manufactured by multinational corporations with interests in many sanitization-related areas. They are typically sold as part of a package that includes both the dispensers and the toilet paper, which I guess makes sense if you think about it. (The Pez analogy is one that unfortunately comes to mind; you rarely see the candy sold without the dispenser.) Bay West is one such company, offering a broad array of services in the environmental, industrial and emergency segments. Their corporate motto – “Slide Door Right for More Paper”– is printed proudly on each of their dispensers, and belies their larger mission in fields like brownfield site remediation (ew!) and hospital waste management. It’s good to know they have something to fall back on if bidets ever catch on in this country.

Another name that I came across in my research in the lavatory at a local bagel seller was SCA. When I searched for this firm on-line, I came back with several hits that caused me concern that this trend toward synergy in the industry was spinning out of control. Was SCA the Society for Creative Anachronism? The Student Conservation Association? The Society of Crystallographers of Australia? I could imagine any of these names being euphemisms for the business of helping the public do their business in public, but none turned out to be the company I was looking for. A link to “SCA Armor (Heavy)” seemed promising, considering the amount of protection these devices provide, but also led to a dead end. Finally I was routed to something called “Tork Online,” which referenced an SCA that sold “away-from-home tissue products,” and I knew I had struck pay dirt.

“An in-depth knowledge of our customers’ businesses means our products work hard to eliminate waste, reduce maintenance costs and offer hygienic solutions,” reads the products page. “Our dependable, attractive dispensers are designed to optimize hygiene, function and cost-in-use through designs that reduce consumption and maintenance time, dispense effortlessly and discourage pilferage.” Note that it’s only in the last two words of their blurb that they hint at their true purpose, keeping me and others from making off with free toilet tissue.

A more thorough look at the products section shows a fine array of conventional and jumbo dispensers, and a certain genius of these producers that I hadn’t considered before. The conventional model is described as “preventing waste by dropping a reserve roll only after the primary roll is depleted, keeping the used roll core in the unit and washroom floors clear of debris.” The jumbo model -- for high-traffic facilities and, I presume, the waiting rooms of gastroenterologists -- offers a “unique tear feature that eliminates the risk of cutting or scratching hands,” convenient for those moments of desperation we’ve all experienced but are too fortunate to remember in any detail.

Another maker is a company called Merfin, which I’m proud to say services my own workplace. With their system, “time spent replacing rolls can be reduced by up to 90%, and savings are increased by reducing waste and over-consumption with virtually indestructible locking dispensers.” I knew over-consumption was the problem that hyper-extended our nation’s credit system, but I never thought of it as an issue in the area of personal hygiene. Who are they to judge what’s enough or what’s too much? Anyway, I will give them credit for coming up with a cool trademarked and intercapped name for their line – VersaCore, offering the most versatile (bold italic theirs) tissue dispensing options in the world.

Finally, I want to reference probably the best-known company in this field, Georgia-Pacific. I didn’t go to their website because I found out enough to convince me that they are the future of public bathroom tissue during a recent and urgent visit to the toilet in the new upscale Barnes & Noble not far from my home. This casing, while still made of the traditional PMMA polystyrene that seems to be an industry standard, features a stylish, sloped front-end and an overall design that would be at home in the lobby of Europe’s trendiest boutique hotels. I was so impressed that I took a picture with my cell phone, even at the risk of criminal prosecution and a probable listing on certain predator lists. (I’ll include the photo with this posting if I can figure out how to get it off my phone and onto my computer). Even better, it dispensed paper easily in a free-flowing, luxuriant manner that tempted me to roll a mound out onto the floor and lay down for a nice nap.

All things considered, though, I think I’d still prefer the retro approach – the lone, free-standing roll sitting on the tank behind the seat.

No thanks, mister

It’s probably a good indicator that technology has gone too far when it shows up in the bathroom.

I don’t think it makes me a Luddite to complain that the last innovation worth a crap was the invention of indoor plumbing and that every improvement since has been merely gilding the lily. There are certain basics that seem totally sufficient without the addition of electronic circuitry and motion-sensing equipment. There’s only one movement I need to be sensing when it comes to using the facilities (OK, maybe two); I find everything else that’s going on in the modern restroom to be distracting at best and embarrassing at worst.

The men’s room at my office recently received such an unnecessary upgrade. You can’t help but wonder about corporate priorities when our workweek is cut to four days and we haven’t had a raise in ages, and yet somewhere there’s a budget line item that pays for urinals that no longer require manual flushing. These appeared one recent Monday morning and caused quite a stir. I hadn’t noticed the innovation when I stepped up to do my business and was more than a little startled to find that a certain requisite shaking had set off rushing waters before I even had the chance to step away.

I think what bothered me more than the wasteful spending (pun intended) was the presumptuousness of management that flushing was necessarily the next logical step in the process. I admit it’s hard to come up with other realistic scenarios, but still I wanted to make the decision myself to reach up and depress the lever which would dispatch the urine. We already have enough standard process steps that don’t require any thought or creativity at work as it is.

I resented this further incursion into my decision-making. If it’s meant as a labor-saving device, I can frankly use the exercise. If it’s for sanitation sake, I still don’t see the justification. While I’ve always found it gross to allow my pee to mingle with the pee of some previous user, I know there are those whose respect for our natural resources might offset such squeamishness.

On my next several trips to the urinal, I brought along a sticky note to cover the motion sensor, allowing me to walk away and flush when I was damn well ready. Plus, it made me feel better that there wasn’t some person watching via the Internet in some business support services operation halfway around the world who was actually triggering the flush. I’ve never quite understood how motion-sensing works, so I can’t dismiss this other possibility in our increasingly globalized economy.

The next innovation to appear was not exactly as ground-breaking, since it’s been employed in gas stations around the country for the last twenty years. But when we got our hot-air hands-drying blower, it was installed under the guise of concern for the environment. “Save a tree” implored the home-made sign that urged us to forsake the paper towels. Now I’m all for environmental preservation but I just don’t see how my use four or five times a day of the flimsy sheets they give us is going to make much difference. Especially when these high-powered heat-belchers sound like they’re wasting as much energy as my lawnmower and take about as long to dry my hands as my mower takes to start.

The last upgrade we got came just a few weeks ago in the form of the scent-mister installed just above the urinal that periodically sprays some sort of antiseptic essence down a short tube and into the bowl. It’s not a motion-sensing device (nor an odor-sensing device as near as I can tell) but instead apparently works from an internal timer. So I guess the good thing about it is that you can’t take its activation as a commentary on the quality of your waste. But the down side is that the timer makes the scenting so unpredictable that the little “squeak-whoosh” it emits can scare you off your aim. It’s a pretty nice smell though – one of my coworkers said he might stop bothering to buy cologne altogether and just stick his wrists under the tube.

The final straw, I think, will be one of those motion-sensing spigots on the sink – the kind that require you to wave your hands around like some sort of airport tarmac guy in order to get any water. You’re never quite sure where the rays are coming from, so I’ve just gotten in the habit of dancing frantically in front of the sink when I encounter one of these (those Boomers who remember “doing the Freddy” with the sixties band Freddy and the Dreamers will have some idea of what my efforts resemble). It’s a bit embarrassing if someone else emerges from a stall during this display, especially if that someone is a Republican senator, but what else can you do? We Fifty-Somethings have to adapt to a modern world.

Even though I was perfectly happy with the status quo before this plumbing revolution started a few years ago, there are a couple of inventions I wouldn’t mind seeing in the next wave. One would be some kind of indicator that the urinal is currently in use for those entering our men’s room at work. The single stand-up unit is positioned around a tight corner past the last sit-down stall, and if you don’t know it’s in use – especially if your mission is urgent – you may find yourself running into the back of the current occupant. Not the kind of surprise back-door action you want to inflict on your unsuspecting manager.

The other thing I’d like to see is some sort of microwave device directed at my prostate that would get me out of this brave new world faster than the 8 to 10 minutes it’s currently taking.