Worst Invention of the Decade

It’s a great thing that inventors are always looking for ways to improve our lives. Every once and a while though, somebody thinks it would be a great idea to solve a problem that does not really exist with a solution that makes the original non-existent problem worse than before, and adds a few new problems to the mix as well. It’s bad enough that somebody could come up with such a stupid idea, its worse when the idea is rolled out at great expense nearly everywhere even though it does not come close to working as intended. I present you with the worst invention of the decade, the automatic flush toilet.

I am not talking about the stand up type. Those work fine. I am talking about the sit down kind. They simply do not work right, make the problem worse, and waste twice the amount of water. I guess there was this huge problem with people dropping the kids off at the pool, and then leaving them behind for all to see. I don’t actually remember that being a huge problem. I mean common decency would force all but the sickest of individuals to pull the plug after dropping some kids off. So along comes a solution to a problem that does not exist. Let’s just put a sensor that can tell when you are in drop off mode, and then pull the plug automatically when you are done. Sounds simple right? The problem is that dropping the kids off at the pool is not as simple as that. It’s a 2 part process. First you drop the kids off, and then let’s just say that you stand up to towel off prior to leaving the pool area. So you drop the kids off, stand up to towel off, and then the plug gets pulled automatically. Bye, bye kids. But what to do with the towels? At the pools I use, there is no collection bin. You are supposed to throw them in the pool before you leave. So you toss them in and get ready to leave only to realize that there are dirty towels floating in the pool, and the plug already got pulled. Since there is no manual way to pull the plug, you need to trick the pool into thinking you are dropping the kids off again to get a fresh plug pull. Now I don’t mind dropping the kids off the first time, but it seems a bit silly to “pretend” to drop them off again, just to avoid leaving dirty towels in the pool. So you have a choice here. Leave the dirty towels behind for the next swimmer to find, or trick the pool into draining itself again by pretending to drop off some more kids. Fucking brilliant! My guess is that many people will not go through the motions a second time leaving more messes behind then the auto-drain was supposed to fix. For those that go through the motions and pretend to drop the kids off again, the pool gets drained a second time for no real reason wasting a ton of water. For all these reasons the automated flush toilet is a shoe-in for worst invention of the decade.