rustle me up a rocking chair

So on Monday we moved into a brand new, so-called ‘state-of-the-art’ building. It’s nice, no doubt about that. Much nicer than our last building. And the location is much better. Better restaurants, bars (for happy hour of course), parks, etc. It is closer to my house, but not if I factor in dropping off and picking up the monkey girl. It’s about the same with that added in.

I do have a couple of gripes. We need a passcard/code to go anywhere (we have 2 floors of the building and a garage). It works maybe 50% of the time, the rest of the time you’ve got to get creative and find a new way (walking around to the entrance of the garage) or wait for someone to chance by and open the door to let you in. Fun. You need it for the elevator too. I’ve stuck to the stairs. I can’t deal with an elevator that won’t open.

The other 50% of the time it beeps, and acts like it’s working, yet doesn’t open. It’s great. You stand there like a total moron, swiping your card again and again.

The toilets in the bathroom automatically flush. They worked great on Monday and Tuesday, then today seem to have gone haywire. There are three stalls. In one, it will flush while you’re going, then not afterwards. One doesn’t flush at all, you have to manually push the button. I haven’t tried the other one, but probably should, for accuracy of reporting. Frankly, I’m a little frightened. It’s the handicapped stall, so it might suck me in.

Is it just me? Am I getting old? I can’t help but be distrustful of all these electronic gadgets. Even our phones run on a computer program. I haven’t learned that yet (because I missed the *gasp* 2 hour training…that’s another drama-filled tale in and of itself), not because it’s hard, but because no one has given me the code to log in. Ugh.

I think automatically flushing toilets are the worst offenders. How hard can it be? There are all sorts of motion detectors out there. Make it work. I swear, it’s gotten so bad that when I have a good experience with one (god forbid, it flushes, and at the correct time) I’m surprised. Normally it just doesn’t flush. Then I have to lean down and press the button to flush it which really negates the benefit of the auto flush altogether. A few weeks back we had a conference at the Ameristar Casino (gross) and though I chose a different stall each time, the damn things never flushed. Which is odd, since all I heard around me was flushing. I had such a complex…am I that pale that it doesn’t even register me? Do I move too slowly? Too quickly? WTF?

Then when they flush while you’re sitting (or squatting or whatever you do) you inevitably get splashed in the ass. With pee-pee or poo-poo water. Nice. Nothing better.

I’m all for technological advancement, when necessary. But for the love, make it work. Quit installing shit-for-brains, work-50%-of-the-time, splash-you-in-the-ass toilets. I’d so much rather have ones you flush yourself.