As children we are given coloring
books and crayons to express ourselves.
Then, we are told to “stay between the lines.” It seems as though if we color beyond those
boundaries we are somehow bad people.
That thought came to me while in
a bathroom at a Hardee’s restaurant last week.
I had just finished peeing and was washing my hands when I noticed there
was no paper towel dispenser, only one of those useless blow dryers.
When I was a little kid I recall
trying to dry my hands with one of those dryers, to no avail. I recall reading the metal riveted sign that
instructed the user to “rub hands vigorously,” again, to no avail. I wiped my wet hands onto my trousers to
reach the desired result.
The Hardee’s blow dryer produced
similar results – none. I left the men’s
room with wet trousers and semi-dry hands.
It wasn’t as much the moist
britches as much as it was the instructions that began to bother me. After fifty years of wiping my hands on my
pants I realized I was still following the instructions by vigorously rubbing
my hands together.
Suddenly my mind switched gears
to 1964. That was the year the federal
guvment mandated seat belts be installed in all cars.
I have been using seat belts for
over a half-century in cars, airplanes, and on amusement park rides. I would say I have some experience.
Alas, instructions about their
use still abound. On the sun visor is an
ugly sticker that gives both written and pictorial directions for anyone who
just awoke from a five-decade coma, or an Obama supporter.
On every flight I’ve ever taken,
the stewardesses or flight chicks, or whatever their current title is, stand in
the aisle with a miniature seatbelt.
They plug one end into the other and then demonstrate how to uncouple
the pieces. After roughly 400 visual
examples, I have yet to learn anything new.
Keeping all this in mind, I feel
that each traffic light and every stop sign should have a sign posted that
explains the procedure for behavior at that junction. I’ve witnessed many drivers simply roll
through stop signs and drive willy-nilly across lanes of traffic without even
slowing. (Hence the installation of
red-light cameras.)
In all my years I have never seen
a person on a just-landed airplane frantically calling for an air chick to help
them unbuckle their seatbelt.
Likewise, I have yet to spot a
skeleton inside an automobile that spent their final days attempting to undo
their safety belt.
Why are all those instructions
given when we clearly know how to do things?
My suggestion for all this
insaneness is to stop with all those
nonsensical instructions and spend that time and money on building something
that will actually dry hands.
I think I’ll invent a paper
towel.
