In June of 2004, at a hotel in Houston, Texas (a city which I was visiting to compete in a quiz bowl tournament and to which I hope never to return—its principal features, as I recall them, were a foul odor, an interminable highway, and an obvious abandonment of any responsibility for urban planning), I encountered my first automatic paper towel dispenser. I waved a hand in front of the infrared sensor, a motor whirred, and a foot-long sheet of brown paper towel emerged and was perforated, ready to be torn away. No yanking, pushing, or turning required on my part.
I was a little stunned.
Thus began my search. I swore then and there that I would be ever-vigilant when using the facilities. I would not cease my search until I discovered a bathroom offering me motion-sensetive flushing, water, soap, and paper towels. (I exclude automatic hand dryers from my metric because they are abominations.)
Some three years later, I was in the Detroit airport, flying in for the last quiz bowl tournament of my high school career. I had awoken early for my flight; I was tired and disoriented and I had to pee. I entered the stall and observed the quotidian sensor, the LED inside blinking red as I approached. I emerged and placed my hands under the faucet, and lukewarm water flowed over them, as it had so many times before. My heart skipped a beat as the unblinking electronic eye of the soap dispenser observed my approach and directed some pump to squeeze a dollop of hand-soap into my waiting palm. Barely daring to hope, I turned to the wall—where hung an automatic towel dispenser. I had found it: a bathroom scoring a four out of four on the Silberman Bathroom Automation Index. As a friend commented when I reported the news, it was “a triumph of the electronic will.”
My quest was at an end.
Or perhaps it was just beginning. It’s still just the one bathroom.