I was in McDonalds today for the first time in ages. It had occurred to me that the growling sound emanating from my stomach was probably connected with the complete abstention from nourishment I had so perfectly effected since I awoke. No doubt the result of having to dash out of the house in 15 minutes following an embarrassing AM/PM related gaff perpetrated when I was setting my alarm.
Not wanting to pay the exorbitant costs of a filled baguette from the station vendors at Liverpool Street, I plumped for an apple pie: inoffensive, cheap and tasty.
Anyhow, after eating it and depositing the wrapped on top of the sealed litter bin* I needed to wash my hands, so I made my way to the men’s lavatory.
I squeezed some soap from the shiny metal dispenser, lathered it up and then looked to reach for the tap. Except there was none.
There was a small dome like construction, devoid of any feature besides a small grill through which I supposed the water would be dispensed.
Now being a reasonably well travelled fellow, I pride myself on having used the facilities in a great many airports and as we all know, airport lavatories are the guinea pigs for new taps and toilet fitting.
Almost every design company in the world has, at some point in the past 15 years, turned its hand to creating a new way to turn on a tap or flush a toilet and they have inflicted the products of their deranged innovation on the humble transcontinental traveller. Some of them have been bizarre, others ingenious and some quite complex, however much to my immense personal satisfaction I have always been able to glean the methods of their function from the standardized diagrams provided.
The instructions on the wall here showed a hand in some form of ‘super secret ninja crab’s-claw grip’ over a graphical presentation of what I assumed must be the dome.
Another gentleman approached, stood at the sink beside me, lathered his hands and then stared in frank incomprehension at the apparatus set out before him.
So began about half a minute of waving, pushing, pulling, turning, wafting and signaling in a futile attempt by both of us to get the taps to function. Our sudsy hands flailing in all directions.
He turned to me and laughing said, “Does this mean we’re idiots?”
“It damn well looks like it.” I replied.
We spent another few moments wrestling with the bathroom artifacts before someone gestured to a small patch of glue where presumably a button had been stuck before and of course when this patch was pressed the taps worked as normal.
Following this, no less than 3 people entered the men’s room and used the taps perfectly without any prompting.
Both my fellow incompetent and I looked rather sheepish exiting the men’s room and consoled each other with the fact that this was only a McDonalds. Had this been an expensive restaurant, sod’s law would have mandated that there be a trouser inseam-wetting setting activated by a very particular twist of the tap. This, we would invariably execute at length and with astonishing precision.
*(London stations have no bins in them whatsoever as a result of IRA terrorism in years gone by, however the no-bins strategy has now been rather over-zealously extended to the McDonalds, It seems a bit of a joke given that terrorists nowadays don’t bother to leave the scene when they detonate their explosives, preferring instead to disgrace the name of their deity with a loud cry preempting their hail of destruction)
Posted by John Swaine at March 9, 2005 01:21 AM