Dumb inventions still being used today.

Every single time I get an automatic flush blast toilet water on my butt, I get really annoyed and silently grumble about it, but never actually do anything about it.

But today, after the millionth time it’s happened to me in my office building’s bathroom, I decided that this is the day the silence comes to an end. I’m sure I’m not the only one, and it’s time we speak up for ourselves and not let such useless inventions continue to devastate our first world lives.

Here are 3 of the dumbest inventions still being used today:

(Yes I know there are tons of stupid inventions in the world like neck holders and boob cushions and there are tons of lists of why they are obviously dumb hence eventually stopped being manufactured, but I'm talking about dumb inventions that don’t seem to be recognized as dumb and are still used ubiquitously today.)


1) The Automatic Flush.

Is it so freaking hard to flush after someone else?

I mean, it might be nasty if you walk in on a toilet bowl filled with a fresh pile of crap,

but IT IS JUST A BUTTON.

Press it.

Also, if you want to completely eliminate the scenario above from even happening, you can maybe, I don’t know, FLUSH AFTER YOURSELF you inconsiderate vile excuse for a human being???

I don’t even see what purpose the automatic flush serves.

It doesn’t ease the effort of carrying 100 rocks I don’t understand why someone thought it necessary to invent it.

They also always install a manual button despite the automatic flush because they know it doesn't actually work. Because so far, after 99% of every piss/dump I take, the automatic flush comes on when I am NOT done, and when I am actually done, I still have to press the manual button.

Only 1% of the time does the automatic flush coincidentally come on exactly when I am done, in which I would have to spring from my seat at that very same second to save my butt, but because one can never fully escape the fury of the automatic flush, I'll still get some minor sprinkles of flush water on my thigh or whatever. It's gross.

(^hee I used butt and but consecutively in a sentence)

Inventions are meant to make life better. And I’d rather just press a flush button.

Moving along.


2) Bins with lids (AND WITH NO PEDAL)

Okay, they probably used these in the past when bin pedals were not invented, and I can understand that we all want lids on our bins to hide the unsightly trash in the bin, or deter pests from swimming around in them etcetc.

But a better inventor already invented a bin with a lid and with a pedal already, which actually serves the purpose of making things more convenient so whY ARE WE STILL going back to the stone ages and having to touch the damn lid omg I can’t.


3) Sheer Clothing. 

Okay this isn’t really counted as an invention, neither is it dumb in perhaps certain countries, but it is dumb in the context of Singapore, because you can’t just wear this out in public with just a bra underneath (not that I want to anyway) because we are so conservative here.

And so you have to wear it with a top inside, and that’s where all the problems begin. 

Because as you know THIS COUNTRY IS A FURNACE, so when you strut around in 2 layers of clothing (one of which is made of suffocating synthetic material), you are bound to die of heatstroke.

And when you’re in 2 layers you’re bound to sweat more, so that’s 2 sweaty tops at once straight into your laundry. Because why wash one top, when you can wash two??

And also occasionally the top underneath bunches up and you look like you have fat layers made of clothes. It’s sad.

But in general:

THEY’RE NOT CLOTHES IF I HAVE TO WEAR CLOTHES UNDERNEATH. 
 
Although okay, I know sheer clothes are consumer goods and I can just choose not to buy them, but I’m just putting them in the list because I only stopped buying them after learning the hard way.

The first few sheer tops I got looked perfectly fine in the dressing room, even with an inner layer, because no one thinks of consequences when you buy outfits in an air-conditioned dressing room.


Aand that’s it.

I’m sorry if a lot of this was rather toilet-centric. I guess when you are alone in a stall you are very highly irritable? I dunno.

Oh wells hopefully this will reach the hands of some toilet/clothes inventors and they will see the light and production will stop and the world will be a better place.

But anyway on to happier things, you can join me next time as I discuss the best inventions of our day. (Okay I’m just saying this because I thought it'd make a cool closing line, I don’t really have any on my list)


P.S. My drawings are kinda neat today? I hate how I am so inconsistent omg sometimes I draw so messily but some days I'm fine. 


P.P.S. By the way, I wrote this last week and I only posted this on Monday (it's Friday now). 

Just making it clear in case my bosses finds this post (which I hope they don't because that would be weird) because there was no way I could've written this on Monday because I've had the worst week of my life at work. 

I had 5 scripts to write by today, which were handed to me only at the start/middle of the week. And that's not inclusive of the half day I had to be on a recce and 2 days I had to be on shoot = time in which I can't work. And that's also not inclusive of the wall mural I had to help paint. I stayed back past 11 for 2 days this week and I just wish for some consistency because I've had days where I literally have nothing to do and then this week I have FIVE to complete within the week I want to cry omg.

Ok actually, I already did. 

Like today when everyone went for lunch (I couldn't because I was panicking and rushing work and I asked Kim to tapao for me) I just had this 5-second speed-bawl to myself while I was alone at my desk to release my feelings but obviously I pulled it together by the time everyone returned because I am strong. 

The worst part of all this is that I am a horrible multi-tasker and I cannot do 5 things simultaneously (In a normal situation I would clear them literally 1 by 1 but I COULD NOT because I would have a phone interview arranged regarding Project 1 while I'm doing Project 2, or while I'm on Project 3 the client will say they want me to rewrite Project 4 by the next morning LIKE I DON'T HAVE A LIFE BUT ACTUALLY THEY ARE RIGHT i don't). And when I am switching back and forth from so many big tasks, WITH THE ADDED FACTOR OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION I cannot concentrate and I forget a lot of tiny things while trying to remember the big ones. 

My brain has just generally been in a coma this week. I seriously thought I was bad at multi-tasking and bad at mornings and then this week happened and I just blew myself off my own charts of failure.

Also the other worst part is that Raph is currently living it up in Paris as we speak and while I am telling him how I did not have dinner he is sending me pictures of his magic croissant for breakfast or something I don't even know. 

Okay forgive me rant over I needed to vent. I have been running on adrenaline and grace the past week.

I should get some sleep.

Nobody paid me for anything.

So first off, thank you SGAG for featuring the post I did on my boyfriend’s latest obsession. You guys are cool. Also, writing a quick one just to clarify this, because some people are thinking otherwise:  

It was not an ad. 

Yeap. I’m sorry to disappoint you (and myself lol). I'm really not as shrewd as you think I am.

I’m assuming the reason why a few people were suspicious or whatever is because they thought it was an ad, and that I didn’t put a disclaimer on it, hence that wasn't nice.

But here's making it clear that I'm no richer than I was like, a month ago.

Although thanks for even thinking it looked like I deserved to get paid. :')

Fact is I've been working a 10-7 job ever since I graduated 2 months ago and I've been coming home at 9pm (because inaccessible house woes) and staying up late at night just to sing songs I like, and draw stuff I like, and write things I like. Because.

But I guess it kinda pays off to keep at something you love? Because I've had so many people tell me today that they laughed, and that's worth more than all the sleep I've sacrificed, and worth more than all the days I've come home feeling lousy because I'm struggling to write corporate pitches at work and worth more than all the times I wish I could just give up in life and become a balloon seller. And who knows, maybe someday I can actually do what I really love for a living. That would be a dream.

But anyway thank you everyone who said nice things to me! I'm so happy to have made you happy.

The tiniest of things.

Sometimes when I feel too busy, or feel like I’ve too much on my plate, I take a step back, pray, and perhaps think about the ever-famous image of the pale blue dot. You can google it if you don't know what's that.

 “From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

- Carl Sagan, the cool astronomer guy who requested to get that photo of earth taken, who also happens to write beautifully. 

There’s a pretty dark hilarity in that excerpt and I sad-laugh a bit every time I read it. Because the truth is that we are all trying to cram the world into our hearts.

We think it’s too big, that’s why it can’t seem to fit. But the truth is that it’s too small and leaving too much of it empty.

And then I think of how the God of the entire universe cares for every person in that speck.

That he would send His son to die for me, so that I’m forever righteous, so that I can call him Daddy.

That infinite incomprehension of why the Creator of the entire universe would want to sit down and spend time to love me, a speck in a speck in a speck.

And that,

That’s what fills my heart.

The Point of Instagram.

Tiny pictures = Signs of life.

I will never fully understand the bizarre phenomenon that is social media but I suppose I like following friends and writers and artists and knowing that they’re alive and well.

And animals I like all of your animal pictures.

Can't even title this post.

Sorry yalls.

I used to wonder why people wanted to be taitais and laze their lives away.
Now I finally understand the appeal.

But yes this post is to let you know that I might skip some Mondays. I'll try to write weekly because it does indeed calm my soul but if I don't, it means I'm busy fending for my physical survival.

PS. Speaking of calming the soul, I found a box of chamomile tea in my house and almost retched at the sight of it. I hate chamomile tea it tastes like onions I don't understand why people like it or think it's a calming tea. I drank it once and it was so smelly I seriously have no doubt that they crushed onions and put them in teabags and then packaged them in boxes with pictures of flowers LIES I KNOW THEYRE ONIONS. 

And yes, I don't like onions, but just the raw ones, with the smell. Okay if you spam salad dressing on them till the smell is masked I mighttt eat it, but NO to onion tea - or so they call "chamomile tea" - where the smell is brewed to its ultimate atrocity. 

Like I am generally not a fussy eater but chamomile is seriously quite high up on my *short* list of most hated foods, coming in a close second to raw beansprouts, where no amount of sauce can ever mask its evil.

First.

YES FOLLOW BEHIND ME ALL YOU PEASANTS.

Always easier to fear.

Remember deep down in your spirit darling, where it’s realer than everything you can see:

"You’re loved, you’re loved, you’re loved."

More than you could ever imagine. 

-----

I used to not really understand why people say fear and love are opposites, and what 1 John 4:18 really meant. Because isn’t the opposite of love, hate? And isn’t the opposite of fear, boldness?

But then I realized that boldness stems from love, and hate of fear. Because “love” in this context is more of “knowing you are loved and given good gifts”, and “fear” is more of “fearing punishment and some kinda bad gift”.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross once wrote that there are only two primary emotions, love and fear. But it's more accurate to say that there is only love or fear, for we cannot feel these two emotions together, at exactly the same time. They're opposites. If we're in fear, we are not in a place of love. When we're in a place of love, we cannot be in a place of fear.

Graduating officially last week let me see that I had a choice: to be in a place of fear or to be in a place of love.

Pastor always says that there is more than enough blessing to go around, it’s not like you’re losing out or shortchanged when someone else gets blessed. It’s one of the reasons that always makes me excited about doing something new. Because the economy of love never runs short of supply, and it never runs short of good gifts.


 It’s always easier to fear, but what has fear done for anyone?