Automation Nation

My grandmother was born in 1888 and died in 1982. She was born before there were a million of the appliances, conveniences, and necessities we now enjoy, and died without ever using a credit card, seeing a computer, a cell phone, or flying in an airplane. It’s almost mind-boggling how much technology has advanced in our nation and around the world in just the last thirty years, and I have no doubt it will keep advancing.

            Today we stopped for coffee at a shop in Riverside. We parked on the street at a parking meter which took coins or a credit card, (never saw that before).  We went in and ordered, and while waiting, I went to the restroom which had a unique lock on the door. Passing a 3”x 4” “Women’s” sign over a small light near the door automatically opened the lock! Throughout my life of using public restrooms, I’ve been given brass keys attached to various objects such as a blue kitchen funnel, a 12” piece of dowel, or a short toilet plunger, but never something electronic. Motel room keys are now plastic cards as well, but they must be inserted into the lock to activate it.

            Once inside the restroom, I had almost nothing to do as the toilet flushed by itself, the soap, water, and towel were on sensors and did their job without me, and as I left, the light went out by itself. Only in the airport in South Dakota did I see more automation, and that was an automatic seat-covering device!

All of this has become so “normal” I have caught myself with my hands under a regular faucet for a few seconds before it dawns on me that I have to turn, push, or pull the handle for water.

            Advancing technology in the restrooms of the nation is a tiny example of the whole progression which IS mind-boggling and a bit scary. I can still remember a cartoon I saw back in the fifties of a human who had a shriveled body from lack of exercise, a gigantic head to encase its ever-developing brain, and a long, muscular index finger for pushing the buttons which launch the systems it needed at the time, whether it was technology or housekeeping. Perhaps I’ll begin exercising my fingers!