Reasons for a blog, part 2 - toilet trauma

Yeah, I know...it took awhile to get to the next post. But it was summer and a lot of things have happened, yadda yadda yadda, and now finally there's a little window of opportunity to write something down. And even though this summer I have broken the cycle of chronic singleness I stand by every word.

But there are obviously many other interesting things to talk about than really heavy quasi-scientific explanations of social phenomena, like the small things. Yes...the small details..

Like restrooms. This past summer I had the opportunity to visit one of Stockholm's very few public toilets (for some reason Stockholmers in power like to keep public restrooms uncomfortably few and far between) in a small park in the southern part of the city (den vid Bofilsbågen för alla svennar därute). Once inside it was easy to see that minimalism was the key word in design. After doing what I had to it was time to flush the toilet. Unfortunately, this is where the problems start.

You would think that the flush button, pulley, lever, chain or whatever would be close to the toilet, but nowhere near was any discernable thing of the sort. After realizing that this might take a second or two to figure out someone knocked on the door outside, which was strange since I hadn't been in there for more than a couple of minutes. I noticed then a series of illustrations which you see above (just because it's so easy with digital cameras) to show how confusing this was. The first three show how to use the sink to wash your hands, which is easy enough. The fourth shows how to flush the toilet. I'll let you guess for a little while before I tell you the answer.

Since it showed a hand pointing to some mystical dot with waves coming from it situated above the toilet I thought it meant a sensor was somewhere nearby, like above the toilet. So there I was, waving my hands wildly over the toilet seat in hope of accidentally setting off the sensor to trigger a flush and someone was still knocking on the door to come in. There was a fleeting thought that it must have been staged so that a hidden camera would show someone wildly flailing about, looking for a sensor to flush the damn thing while someone was about to knock the door down, like a sick practical joke. I even carefully stuck my foot inside the toilet seat in hope of finding the magical hidden dot, but the toilet remained silent. Sooo....have you figured out what the magic might be?



Here it is...


After stopping to think about it for a few seconds, I finally pushed the actual illustration and then came the beautiful whoosh of water. After washing my hands, with the cunning help of the other three illustrations you see above, I walked out to find (of course) nobody there. Does it have to be this difficult to figure out how to flush a toilet? Who's the idiot here, me or the crack design team? Has anyone else had such a traumatic experience before because of strange and confusing signs? I believe in creating discussion, so let's hear it!