This post (originally titled: An Ode To A Commode)  is about the men’s rest room in our office!

Disclaimer: This post had been in the ‘draft’ mode for months now, and some of the issues mentioned here might no longer exist.

The generous urinal
Just as you step up to the urinal, the infrared sensor triggers the spray. Noooo, not ‘that spray’ silly — but a fairly robust spray from the urinal itself that leaves you splashed even before you have splooshed! After several such trial and error attempts (your trials; urinal’s errors) you discover the one particular urinal (out of half a dozen) that does the least damage, and ‘aim’ for it each time! Noooo, not ‘that aim’ silly!

Murphy taps
Ostensibly these are state-of-the-art taps. The kinds that you see in TV ads or glossy magazines. You push them to start the flow of water. Start washing your hands and lo and behold, the tap times itself out. Invariably taking too long to time out if you just want a quick wash of the hands. And timing out too soon if you need to have a prolonged wash of the hands. Leaving you feeling guilty or grumpy respectively. Now you get it why I call them Murphy taps? After Murphy’s Laws of course!

Issues with tissues
The tissue dispenser (which has now been fixed) was magnanimous in its dispensation of tissues. Pull one, get four free! Sadly, the environmentally-conscious part of my brain always took off on a parallel stream of thoughts — where I would hear the thud of falling trees, with every wipe of the hand. Fortunately, I rediscovered my bevy of handkerchiefs because of this!

Know thy neighbour
WCs have traditionally been known to trigger reflective thoughts in people’s minds. However the WC enclosures here not only ensure self-discovery — but that of others occupying cabins adjacent to yours! All thanks to the polished granite floor (which is as reflective as a fashion store mirror) and the partition walls that end 6 inches above the floor. Again, the trick learned over time is to occupy the WC at the end of the row — so that with just one flank exposed, you reduce by half the probability of the guy next door and you exchanging acknowledging glances through the medium of the aforementioned floor while seated on your perches!

Hold that pose
The diameter of the toilet seat is so small that at the end of a declension session you have to have an uplifting experience. Literally! You have to get your body to be in a pose such that the angle between the lower part of your leg and its upper part is approximately 135 degrees! Yeah hold that pose; no need to say cheese; just swipe/wash please! Thank you!

May the force be with you
The hand shower releases water at a pressure that would put crowd control water canons used by riot police to shame! I swear, I’m not kidding! Needless to mention that using it results in shaming you — once you juxtapose this forceful performance with the pose you held in the point above. Oh! And if you’ve also used the urinal a little while ago (as mentioned in the first point earlier) you would now have, what we management types call — 360 degree feedback!

Mirror mirror on the wall
When you face the mirror — right behind you is a window that pours in enough light to give you a haloed reflection. The kind that’s used to depict ‘Samay the divine’ in mythological TV serials. Even the most die-hard hedonists amongst us have to contend with only appreciating our silhouettes! In all fairness though, for the non-self-obsessed ones amongst us, the mirror does suffice in broadly suggesting that it’s our own physical self being shown in the mirror.

Are you being served?
And if you thought the design and fittings of this place gave you nightmares — the cleaning staff (no, this ‘staff’ is not a fitting or fixture! And not even what the dirty among you are thinking!) scare the daylights out of you. They outnumber you 4 to 1! Each one lurking right behind you. And they are ready to pounce… on the water that you spill on the washbasin counter, to mop it off! Remember, on any typical usage day they would’ve been observing closely, how you struggle with point 2 & 3 above. How you got shamed by point 1, 4 & 6. And then this! Surely one can’t see them in the eye. Not surprising, since this is the same toilet where while you may not even see yourself in the eye (point 7 above), you can have ample eye to eye with your neighbour (point 4 above)!

Now that I’ve finally embraced toilet humour as a viable enough subject, my next post will be about the world’s gizmo-est toilet from my visit to Korea.

Till then..