Dancing in the dark

In today's modern world there are many-a-benefits (and/or excuses to be lazy) involved in our daily lives.

You know, like

• battery-powered candles
• a beeping noise when you forget to close that extra half-inch of the refrigerator
• (a refrigerator in the first place... bummer to be you, people from medieval times!)
• that 360 degree freeze frame thing they can do on the Olympics that makes watching gymnastics feel like you're in a Madame Tussaud's.

People are always looking for ways to take a little elbow grease out of life. Apparently at some point, even interactions with a light switch became far too much of a hassle, so "they" (I still don't know who they are) invented automatic lights. When the auto-light made its debut it was cool I guess-- I never had much of an issue slightly elevating my arm to the wall, but I can see the appeal. The problem with these societal advancements, as we all know, is that sometimes they fail... and when strategically placed in a public bathroom, an automatic light gone rogue can cause unadulterated panic.

Am I alone on this? When the door is closing at 35 mph, and the last slivers of outside light are closing with it, all of a sudden my hands are in a Mr. Miyagi "wax-on, wax-off" routine, begging the sensor to detect my existence. And um, hello.. I came in in the first place because I needed to go to the bathroom. I don't have time for this! Like I said-- it's panic. Sometimes this only lasts a matter of seconds before you either Matrix yourself back to the door handle, or the sensor decides your performance was worth noticing, but somehow even within those few seconds you lose a little dignity.

If employees were to intentionally turn off the sensors in these public bathrooms and put an infrared camera inside, it would make for so good a show that Wheel of Fortune would finally have to surrender its 7:30pm daily slot. (But also cameras in bathrooms would absolutely result in lawsuit, so I do not condone this behavior at all.)