My Faucet Is Out To Get Me

We got our kitchen remodeled last year. Among other upgrades, the designer recommended a touch-activated faucet for the sink.

It sounded like such a handy idea. You know when your hands are all messy from dipping chicken into egg-then-flour coatings? Touch the faucet with your elbow and, voila, water to wash up with but no smeary gunk on the handles. Touch it again and it shuts off. Modern magic.

My husband appreciates the faucet. He enjoys the high-tech responsiveness. My grandsons ask to please wash the dishes — because the faucet is such fun to play with.

But the new-fangled device has it in for me. Me, who uses it the most. Me, who would most appreciate some help in the kitchen.

Let me describe.

I make tea first thing in the morning. I approach the sink with bleary eyes and the tea kettle. I believe I’ve lined up the faucet and the kettle. I touch the top of the faucet pipe. Nothing happens.

Of course, we’re all acquainted with the syndrome. It happens so often in public restrooms that we ought to have an official name for the dance of hands to get an automatic faucet to start.

True to form, this automatic faucet, in my own home, refuses to recognize me as a physical entity.

I touch the faucet again. The water shoots out, missing the spigot hole of the tea kettle. I take hold of the faucet to turn it.