State of Mind Highway

This month Toni Marshall asks what is your state of mind each time you hop into the driver's seat?
By Toni Marshall

I had reason to use an automated toilet this week. In Picton, with enough time to stop in the town itself, I wandered the main street and chose to use the public loos. It has been a while since I have navigated these self-clean, self-lock, self-flush … well self-everything models and I must say the concept is quite fascinating. Immediately upon entering, the door closes automatically, lights come on and an authoritative voice announces that you have ten minutes of use available to you. While the tone of the delivery was somewhat terse, I did feel comforted by the knowledge that I had a very good amount of time to complete the job at hand. As I shut the door music filled the air from somewhere above me.

Somewhat distracted from my original reason for entering I began to explore every inch of this modernist incarnation of Thomas Crapper. Not one aspect of a 'normal' loo was in view. No basin, taps, hand towels or soap dispenser … even the loo roll was a push-button-and-wait-for-a-trail-of-paper-to-emerge type gadget. Being comfortable with most things mechanical I didn't exactly panic with this new environment, but I was certainly out of my comfort zone at a time I do normally like to be at ease.

All went well with the length of loo paper being automatically dispensed after a quick wave across a sensor (I wonder exactly how they determined the 'best' length for this) and I began to navigate the final operations of my visit. Soap, water and air-drier were all located in a recess in the wall. Moving from left to right in the recess the design clearly indicated that hands beneath soap section would result in a small amount of soap being dispensed, hands under the water sensor would release water to wash and rinse and a final move left with said wet hands would activate the air drier. Very clever? No!