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Digital Slob Curt Brandao |
Toilet light keeps aim
true late at nightEveryone knows most Digital Slobs walk around with standard-issue smirks that serve as our baseline facial expression from dusk 'til dawn. Many of us find we can avoid talking, and the subsequent quagmires often associated with talking, by emitting this silent "yeah, right" vibe for days on end.
However, we also have in our repertoire a special smirk that we only pull out for emergencies. Much like the rare, giant "corpse flower" that can lie dormant for decades only to suddenly bloom with enough stink to make several city blocks smell like a rotting cadaver, our Super Smirk can be just as elusive yet repugnant. While botanists travel the world to endure the odorous amorphophallus titanum in all its glory, if you dare to see the Super Smirk blossom with its radiant sarcasm in plain view, you need only find a Slob during a workday in the midst of "corporate training."
Whether they're 30-minute refresher courses on how to emote smiles through telephone lines while stealing from the elderly, or two-day lockdowns in hotel conference rooms where no one can go to the bathroom until everyone passes around the dictionary to visually confirm that, yes, there's still no "i" in "team," these living-dead extravaganzas never fail to host a bouquet of Slobs displaying near-blinding smirks, often in semi-circular arrangements.
So, since Slobs hate brushing up on things we already learned (or things no one else can prove we didn't learn the first time), you'd think the last thing our pride could stomach smirk-free is a refresher course on potty training -- the Mother of All Strategic Skill Developments.
Think again.
Now, I know we've all been taught that going to the bathroom in our sleep is a bad thing. Blah, blah, blah. Many of us still have emotional scars, and our parents still have the plastic bed liners, to prove it. As a one-time late-night sleep-walking 4-year-old who took a right turn when I should've taken a left, which didn't rouse my mom from the kitchen table until I started to stoically sprinkle the vegetable crisper in the refrigerator, I know what it means to get a "P" for effort in the "wee-wee" hours.
But what Arkon Resources, Inc., can not do for me in therapy it almost makes up for in practicality, with the LavNav Lavatory Navigation Night Light (www.arkon.com).
This battery-operated motion-sensing device attaches to the underside of your toilet's upper lid, strategically illuminating the bowl when you enter in the dark. It glows red when the lid is up (for high-altitude male aerial assaults), and glows green when the lid is down (for ground attacks more customary among females). The TL129 model even emits a red target for the sportsman in your family.
After testing the LavNav in the sleep-deprived Digital Age, I can say it probably works better than I remember, since I was often only semi-conscious when it beckoned my bladder to follow the light.
The LavNav lets you do your business without flicking on your bathroom's fluorescent bulb that shoots you out of dreamtime like a lightning bolt to the spine. With a LavNav in your life, your subconscious can continue to sort out the basic fears and desires too dark and depraved for your conscious mind to comprehend without your bladder forcing you to wake up with no bookmark to save your place.
Now, all I need is a jarring strobe light on the fridge in case I make another wrong turn.
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Curt Brandao is the Star-Bulletin's production editor. Reach him at: cbrandao@starbulletin.com
