Another Technological Innovation for your Inconvenience

Two different men claim to have invented the automatic toilet. And it makes sense. Men's bathrooms are horrifying. What the hell goes on in there? Tractor pulls? Dog fighting? Do NOT touch anything.

The tech innovations in women's bathrooms were well intentioned, but if anyone had asked us, they'd know that in stadiums, theaters, malls, schools and prisons, the toilets have toggle handles. We flush these with our feet. We had the situation under control.

I understand why men would fixate on the toilet, but women are obsessed with doors, and those tiny broken latches are covered with schmutz that a coroner couldn’t identify. THAT's the nasty surface we all touch.

Who ever designed the automatic toilet never held a toddler over one at a movie theater. When a 4 year-old girl needs to pee (which is every 20 minutes) she must be hoisted onto the narrow lip of a cold porcelain vat the size of the Grand Canyon. She must be angled so that she pees in the bowl and not on the adult onto which she's clinging like a barnacle. The average four-year-old butt is 11 inches wide, which confuses the electronic eye at the back of the toilet. In its rage the "smart" toilet usually flushes six times, spraying cold water all over the child who is shrieking because she's certain that the porcelain monster is capable of flushing her, which it is. The velocity of a mall toilet is enough to pull down the Spanish Armada. Now the child is terrified and the adult is covered in pee, six times. Repeat every 20 minutes.

Most men stand up to pee. They hold one position for the entire event. Women however, may stand up and sit down a number of times. Why we do this is classified and I can't tell you. CIA stuff. Meanwhile the toilet has flushed three times. However, none of these has been the appropriate time.

Finally, we pee on our cell phones WAY more than you know. A few years ago, the designers of women's jeans decided that back pockets should be three inches deep. This was to accommodate waistbands four inches lower than is decent for the average sized woman over 30. Unless you are a hip-less 14 year old, most jeans now make every one look like a bad sausage. So, despite the fact that my phone is the size of kangaroo joey it barely fits in my back pocket.

Every day, millions of women enter a bathroom stall, hoping for the hi-tech hygiene innovation called "a shelf" so we don't have to set our belongings ON A PUBLIC BATHROOM FLOOR. We turn around and pull our pants down directly over Poseidon’s Realm. And we hear the terrible splash of $500 hitting the water and immediately jump up, prompting the electronic eye to flush the phone. A family of girls can keep a cellphone company solvent.

I never had any trouble flushing my own toilet. I also never had any trouble deciding how to deal with something germy. Did any one ask you if you needed help? The tech invention that would actually help us would be the red and green lights we now see in swanky parking garages. Hang those babies over the stalls so we wouldn't have to peer through everyone's doors like lecherous perverts.

Occupied. Ocupada!. Hey, I'm peeing here!

A few years ago, I saw the movie Avatar. At the end of the movie I ran to the bathroom blubbering and sucking air like a beached fish, a very very sad fish. My face was hot and wet with tears. My nose was fat and red and raw. When I'd caught my breath, I went to the sink to splash cold water on my face. There were no handles. I waved my hands all around the faucet like a very very sad magician until the electronic eye decided to offer me hot water. No handles means no temperature control. Splashing hot water on my hot face did not make me feel better. Then, face dripping, I reached for paper towels, and instead found two small tunnels which unleash tiny tornadoes but only when your hands are inserted. I tried to insert my face. By now I was no longer sad about the mineral rights of indigenous people. I think James Cameron would have wanted me to cry successfully.

"I was just trying to help." "I know Honey. Now please go buy some paper towels."

While I dried my face with shards of toilet paper, a mother negotiated heavily with two toddlers who wanted to play with the tornado makers for the rest of the day. You men can take the children to the bathroom from now on.

And hasn't anyone clocked the irony of saving us from germs at the very station where we are WASHING OUR HANDS?

Of course it’s not always a fiasco. I can navigate a public restroom 99% of the time, but those times when a woman needs to hose off a toddler or deal with top-secret lady-business, we need our hands. If we needed your help, we'd ask for it. Oh wait. We have. But it wasn't for this. If you've never had to pee while holding a door closed with your foot, singing show tunes to a toddler who is rummaging through your purse on the floor littered with mysterious paper products containing strangers bodily fluids while 17 other women are circling your stall like hyenas, then please, leave the renovations to us.