Monday, June 28, 2010

Why are bathroom tissue dispensers so difficult?

So every day at some point in the day I end up in the first stall of the bathroom closest to my desk at the big A. It seems that the toilet paper dispenser in this particular stall is stuck in a permanent state of disarray. I struggle to wrap my mind around the complex piece of "machinery" that is a toilette paper dispenser. I have been in a number of ladies rooms (and a hand full of men's rooms for that matter) throughout North America and Europe and frankly no one has mastered the TP dispenser. I mean really can someone tell me why it is so impossible to create a TPD that works? At the Big A we have the double decker version, the issue with this type of TPD is if the top roll is prematurely dropped from its top location you get one sheet at a time. ONE SHEET AT A TIME... My question with this type is who is experiencing the knee jerk reaction when the bottom roll is 3/4 gone that they need to release the top role as though to check and make sure its available if needed? At the other building we have the industrial side by side version. Most of the time this variety is great, however on occasion the door that slides is locked in a left or right position that is opposite of the position of the available roll. When this happens you are forced to wedge your hand up in the opposite side of the TPD and scratch at the roll until it turns to where you can grab onto the square and pull...Sweet victory! There are others that I could discuss, the 5 roll holder often found in airports, the gravity feed single square dispenser (rarely found in the US) and of course the single roll holder. It seems odd to me that we can perform surgery on a baby before it is born yet we can not create a fail safe TPD. I guess the people who would be designing such a wonder of the world are likely out there designing tools to perform these little miracles but come on somewhere there has to be an "under achiever" who wants the TP to roll when we want it to and stop when rolling when we are done.

2 comments:

  1. I don't know any woman who has not dealt with this issue!
    Miss you and these rambling thoughts

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  2. I'd like to add a pet peeve of mine on the industrial version... many are installed so low, it'd be easier to dispense with my foot. OR they are so far behind you, that a acrobat maneuver is necessary. WTH?

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