I set a personal record for how many times the water had automatically shut off while I was trying to wash my hands in the bathroom one day and seethed in frustration at my desk for about fifteen minutes before writing this poem. I understand wanting to save water. I understand the sort of low-volume but highly-aerated water flows that these faucets create. I understand that this is probably the best answer for the environment in some regard. I also know that using a normal faucet lets me quickly clean my hands and rinse them in less than a quarter of time it usually takes me to rinse them under one of these low-volume faucets, even if I cut out the time I spent trying to get the water to turn back on while my hands are covered in soap. Honestly, this one is pretty straight-forward with almost no hidden or subtextual meaning and represents a lot of the frustrations I feel working in corporate environments were policy is chosen based on intention without any attention paid to actual outcomes.

“Scrub your hands with soap
For the length of ‘happy birthday’”
Chime all the signs in every bathroom,
All far more appropriately placed
Than the signs reminding you
To wash your hands with no comment
On the business you might have done.

I read them out of habit,
For something to do with my eyes
When my hands are busy with a routine
I’ve maintained since well before
These frequent signs were posted,
And my mind wanders as my hands–
Comfortable in their habit–
Scrub and rinse themselves more thoroughly
Than the early-pandemic classes commanded.

You would think that adults would not need
A class to teach them how to wash their hands,
But I’ve seen too many people
Leave the bathroom directly from the toilet
To ever blame my employer for trying.

When the water shuts off while rinsing my hands,
I shift them from beneath the sensor,
Count out a single beat in my head,
And return them to beneath the faucet
So the water can begin to flow once again.

I don’t note the seconds elapsing
As I work through the trials of rinsing
Just a bit too much soap from my hands–
The automated dispensers were never consistent–
But the times I must move my hands
Away from a sensor that shuts off
Before I’m halfway through “happy birthday”
And marvel at a company
That has the audacity
To grind on and on about washing your hands
When they’re too cheap to give me
Enough water to actually rinse them clean.