"A Glimpse Into The Future We Would Do Well Not To Ignore"

Warning:  The following anecdote includes mention of a bodily function.  I am unable to tell the story without talking about it.  So if you are uncomfortable with the mention of bodily functions – with the exception of perhaps sneezing – the following might not be for you.  For the rest of you who don’t worry about that stuff…

Here we go.

A few years ago, as a result of visiting a luxurious Hawaiian hotel during the “off season”, we were awarded an upgrade to a room we would otherwise never be able to afford.  (As previously mentioned, the Major Dad profits do not kick in until the show is entirely “out of the red”, a condition Universal’s impenetrable accounting system will apparently never allow to take place.) 

The upgraded accommodations included a Japanese-manufactured Toto automatic toilet.  The way it works is, when you approached it, the lid automatically rose up.  You pressed a button, and the toilet seat immediately rose up to join it.   And when you were finished, after an internally calibrated “Waiting Period”, the lid and the toilet seat descended automatically to their original positions.

The Toto’s maneuvers were well worthy of applause.  Maybe even a standing ovation.

During our week’s visit to the luxurious Hawaiian hotel, we enjoyed and got used to our Toto automatic toilet.  And when we returned to the Mainland we surrendered to the extravagance and we purchased one of our own, installing it, not in the Ground Floor facility of our house where visitors could see it and cluck, “Look who got fancy”, but unobtrusively in our upstairs Master Bathroom.  Where it would just be for us.

We have had our Toto automatic toilet for almost three years now.  It has functioned impeccably, and we have absolutely no complaints.

However…

Last night…

I digress momentarily but not extraneously to reference the 1973 science fiction movie Westworld, wherein robots servicing the needs of guests at a fabricated Wild Western locale go berserk and begin to gun down its human visitors.

Since you are experiencing me writing this, you know that my Toto automatic toilet did not unexpectedly murder its owner.  However, as in Westworld, where a society placing its trust in robots is delivered a “rude awakening” when the their relied-upon devices suddenly break loose from their programming and run ruthlessly amok…

Well, this happened.  Which will not make a movie.  But it gave me a view into the future.  And left me anxiously concerned.

I am positioned comfortably above our reliable Toto toilet whose lid and seat have automatically risen and remained fixed in a vertical position, engaging in the urinary activity men habitually engage in while standing directly over a toilet.  And it is going pretty well… for my age.

But then…

To my horror, the toilet seat, without direction or warning…

Began lowering to its original position…

Although I was nowhere close to being finished.

With the inevitable consequences.

Which “good taste” requires me to decorously exclude.

Suffice it to say, however…

It was not an enjoyable aftermath.

A minor glitch, to be sure. 

But with an element of foreboding.

They’ve got the “Driverless Car” now.

But if they cannot ensure that a toilet seat will stay up…

Do we really want to surrender to its control?