When Energy Efficiency is NOT Your Friend

I'm not a really crunchy mom.  In fact, on the Mohs scale, I'm probably just at talc.  While I do my best to recycle and turn off the heat and lights when we leave the house, that's about the extent of my energy-saving ways.  But I don't object to energy-saving efforts made by others, except for two things.

1. Automatic faucets in public restrooms.  

I get that it is a valuable thing not to waste water, and having automatic faucets help with this.  They also make it next to impossible to make a bottle of formula, though.  They almost never stay on long enough to heat up to make anything warmer than a brisk milkshake (or formula shake, as the case may be).  Also, when you're trying to wash the hands of little people, and you have to hoist them up to reach the sink in the first place, their hands usually don't extend far enough to keep the automatic sensor triggered.  

2. Having only air dryers in public restrooms.

I'm guessing that studies have shown that most people, when given the choice between a paper towel dispenser and an air dryer in a bathroom will choose the paper towel.  Hence, I usually only see one or the other, but not both.  Well, I'm sorry, but there are times when having only air dryers will not do!  Like, hypothetically speaking, let's say a mom unknowingly leaves the baby wipes in the car, and the hypothetical two month old son has a blowout nasty diaper.  The mom dutifully wheels her cart into the  store bathroom (with hypothetical 21 month old son in the cart threatening mutiny), gets littlest son on the changing table, and then discovers the lack of wipes.  Okay, no problem, just grab a paper towel (or five) and get them a little bit wet with warm water… uh oh, this bathroom has both automatic faucets and ONLY air dryers!

The mom's hypothetical reaction

I'm just saying that grabbing wads and wads of toilet paper from the stall while the two month old is screaming his head off and the 21 month old is attempting to get out of the cart and yelling in delightful harmony is just not going to cut it.  Hypothetically, of course.  What silly mom of young'ns would possibly do such a ninnyish move as leaving baby wipes in the car???  Oh, the kind that has a hypothetical 3.5 year old who had peanut butter smeared all over her face from breakfast and needed to look a bit presentable for her school pictures.  The wipes were administered but then never returned to the diaper bag.  

That wasn't part of MY day, you understand.  No.  But, hypothetically, it could have been.