Slashdot Mirror
Seattle Flushes $5M High-Tech Toilets
theodp writes "Hopes were high back in 2004 as Seattle's posh public potties opened for business. But four years later, city officials have said good riddance to the five high-tech toilets, self-cleaning and cylindrical, that had cost Seattle $5 million. The city unloaded them on eBay for just $12,549. The commodes had become filthy hide-outs for drug use and prostitution."
We're talking about Seattle, so most of the people there would've been cool with that if the janitor had just visited more often.
;_;
God, I wish I didn't have to move.
And common.
... and then they built the supercollider.
In fact I'm pretty sure I did but of course people still believe that high tech must be better.
In Vancouver, BC, drug use and prostitution are (if not outright legal) decriminalized. This means that the government is able to help those with a problem instead of being forced to put them away in prison.
The public toilets getting abused is a sign of a much deeper problem. It's the puritanical mindset of Americans that pushes these normal behaviors into the shadows and away from the help that the victims so desperately need.
It's a total waste of time to sell these things. It just means fewer public bathrooms downtown, and if you've ever been to a city with no public bathrooms (Philadelphia), you know that the terrible smell is the result.
must have been swimming in their people's money to buy $5M in toilets. If I were a resident I'd be quite enraged over it.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
story on seattlePI.nwsource.com ?
1. Legalize drugs and prostitution.
2. ???
3. PROFIT!!!
No mod points, no meta-moderating/Firehose/all the other free work Slashdot wants me to do.
This is why Amsterdam has public toilets that look like this: http://lh3.ggpht.com/_D4avj_GZuq4/SAsa2yTgvYI/AAAAAAAAB6E/ANS4tx2JuKc/toilet.jpg
Sure, it is not very private, nor can it be considered to be self-cleaning. But they aren't very attractive hideouts for prostitution and drug use either.
Haha! As if Amsterdam had any prostitution or drug use going!
Sounds like they got ripped off in the first place. It shouldn't cost that much to develop something like that unless you have no clue about what you're doing.
I'm sorry David, I can't do that.
I'm confused. This type of toilet is quite popular all sorts of places, so I guess they must be cheaper than providing toilets in some other way. But as Seattle aren't going to be replacing them with anything else... that is going to be cheaper. So, what's the story? That Seattle can't afford public toilets?
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
Since they're obviously so smart about how to spend the taxpayers' money.
Just gets better and better.
Still, you get the government you deserve.
Deleted
That sucks, but this is how progress works. You can't know if something will pan out in advance, because there are too many variables.
And if it had been a massive success, $5M would have been pocket change compared to the convenience and cost effectiveness of full automation.
How on earth did five toilets for $5 million get green-lighted? It must have been a consultant spending somebody else's money and with a fee to justify. How are the voters of Seattle going to reward that terrible waste? Just crazy. That's what's wrong with American right now--so many people willing to screw their fellow man if they can make a dollar off of it. Call it the American way (I would not) but it's killing us. We need to get some honesty and proportion back in our daily lives and business.
Seattle toilets are to drug users and prostitutes as the internet is to spammers and hackers. Discuss.
Syntax error: loose != lose, affect != effect, then!=than
I didn't think you could get more than 20 comments about talking about toilets. Seems I was wrong.
Google is offering the use of a new set of public gToilets in exchange for the ability to scan your waste for leftover products and potential diseases and then offer you contextual ads while you're in the unit.
Such a unique chance for toilet humor and already pages and pages of replies but still nothing?
What happened to the /. we all loved so much?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So Seattle's authorities were flushed with success untill their 'Big Idea' went down the pan!
Smivs on the intertubes!
They need to have the toilet be able to give a shower or open the door automatically after a length of time. In particular, I would think that it should open up after 5 minutes UNLESS the person pushes a button within that timeframe.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This is like when they put up park benches that are intentionally made uncomfortable to sleep on. I understand why, but something is just wrong with society when that happens.
From the article the issue was keeping the self-cleaning toilets clean...they got clogged with trash.
The drug use and prostitution bit was a worry in the original article when they were being installed.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Slashdot - news of turds, stuff that splatters.
At the bottom of the
I mean, where are good honest Republicans like our men Larry Craig and Bob Allen going to go for a little dick?
Does that mean they just had sex there or that the ladies were actually soliciting the clients from inside the toilet room? And most important of all, were they dubbed "high-tech prostitutes" as a result? I wonder if there's any geek among the old profession who will be kind enough to provide the technical details...
the best toilet facilities ive ever seen were in El Alto, Bolivia (the really fast sprawlling city of breezeblock and redbrick that the poorer native bolivians live in above the country's capital capital, La Paz). every shop, cafe, doorstep market stall and telephone centre has a toilet you can use for pocket change. its a nice little earner on the side after all. there's more signs for toilets than anything else in that place. but anyway. are these seattle ones somehow different to the cylindrical cubicles (does that even make sense?) that i can pay 20p to use here in the uk, that shower themselves down when you step out? surely there's more to them than this, although quite why they didnt go with a few of these is confusing.
and seattle, the home of starbucks, should have known that
i'm dead serious. i live in midtown manhattan, and finding a toilet for a tourist, nevermind a resident, is near impossible were it not for a certain chain of coffee shops that monopolize every street corner. and they always have a restroom (unless they are those tiny stores), and those restrooms are open to the public without fail. there are some starbucks nearby subway entrances where if you go sit, you'll notice there is a regular stream of visitors... to the commode, and no one even pretends to want to buy a coffee
you really have to understand what a blessing this is. it really is unique to starbucks: every other establishment, including mcdonalds and other fast food places, are usually hostile to making its restrooms available. but i guess coffee chases away vagrants, as the unstable and stinky always seem to congregate to mcdonalds for their restroom needs, bothering the grumbling manager behind the counter for a key rather than shuffling a few more steps around the corner to go to a keyless starbucks restroom. why the homeless do this, i don't know, but that is 100% true. habit? familiarity?
i used to think the city made starbucks keep their restrooms open for this very reason, as it is such a huge boon in convenience for midtown visitors, workers, and residents. or perhaps a marketing droid at starbucks headquarters noticed a correlation between sales and restroom availability? who knows, but for a non-new york city resident, it is hard to understand what a blessing starbucks restrooms have been for the city
whatever the reason for the mana from heaven of bum-free starbucks commodes in midtown, i'd like to thank starbucks with my very own original marketing slogan, they can use it free of charge:
"if you are thinking of something steaming and brown, think starbucks in midtown" ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's the puritanical mindset of Americans that pushes these normal behaviors into the shadows and away from the help that the victims so desperately need.
Drugs held them down against their will, that's why they're victims? Or doing drugs is normal?
The Slacker Homeless in Vancouver are just lazy bums.
A drug in Seattle that was popular in high tech toilet parlors. Portland is bad enough.
$5M for 5 shit cans for the homeless (I've been a tourist in Seattle and had no problem using private toilets)? And $250k to restore the toilet sites to their previous state? Someone made a very stupid decision, and they need to be held accountable to taxpayers. This money should come out of their salary until the full sum is paid back.
So would you say that the toilets where a SHITTY idea?
*ducks to avoid tomatoes
Please, no pineapples!
Monstar L
Here in Illinois, it's like going on safari in some strange uncharted wilderness. You never know what you're going to encounter or how they will react to you, so you need to be stealthy and unobtrusive. The best specimens are rare and react badly to photography. I'm surprised National Geographic doesn't do a special on it.
The company that build them (WALL AG http://www.wall.de/ or their american subsidiary WALL USA) are operating close to a 100 of those in Berlin and they work fine. I do not know how they sold this service in Seattle, but three things they did in Berlin that could've solved some of the problems are: 1) The toilets are not free. 0.5 Euro per session. 2) They are financed through advertising with included billboards and everything, which also helps maintaining them, because everytime the posters are renewed (at least once week), they do necessary repair jobs. The newer models are networked for remote monitoring and maintenance. The latest models even include Interactive displays. 3) Doors open after 30 minutes, no matter what. In Berlin, Wall has pretty much revolutionized (and almonst monopolized) public installations like these, because they are doing a hell of a job designing "street furniture" as they call it. Public toilets before these were installed were anything from a nuisance to a biohazard and the cityscape drastially improved in most places through their work.
"The public toilets getting abused is a sign of a much deeper problem. It's the puritanical mindset of Americans that pushes these normal behaviors into the shadows and away from the help that the victims so desperately need."
That's a crock of BS. It's puritanical to expect people not to do really, really stupid things? Because heroin isn't exactly an unknown quantity. We've known that it's 100 percent addictive for, oh, centuries now. If you're a smack addict, you're not a victim. You did it to yourself. You know what's going to happen when you put that needle in your arm. You know because everyone else that's done it has ended up the same way.
Prostitution is a little different, because sometimes prostitutes are victims. But many aren't. Many do it willingly and like it. Don't fool yourself on that.
People like to hold up Las Vegas and Amsterdam as examples of tolerance, examples of how we can integrate drug users and prostitution into "normal" society (well, not drugs for Vegas, but hooking is legal there). And yet, after decades of "tolerance" they're busy dismantling the Red Light district in Amsterdam, chasing out the porn places with normal shops. They're tired of dirty needles and trash in their parks, and they're arresting and re-locating junkies. And in Vegas, they're kicking the hookers out of places formerly friendly to them. There are social costs involved with junkies and hookers that go beyond police protection, and even in the Netherlands, they've woken up to that fact.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
http://flickr.com/photos/tags/vespasiennes/
Self-cleaning every time it rains.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
Oh hell no. I'd go find an alley to piss in first. No way I'd use that thing. And what the hell do you do if you have to take a No. 2?
Wait, this is Amsterdam. Probably use an alley.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
How on earth did five toilets for $5 million get green-lighted?
I guess Seattle's government is an easier crowd than Slashdot's moderators.
In Richmond, UK:
http://www.richmond.gov.uk/home/transport_and_streets/road_and_pathway_maintenance/public_conveniences/community_toilet_scheme.htm
the Local Council will give you an annual grant if your shop's staff toilet is opened to the public. To qualify, it has to be free for use, even for non-customers. Pubs which join the scheme have a notice put up outside.
This is cheaper than opening separate public use toilets, and helps the shops and pubs keep their toilets funded.
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
Agreed, But in a small wal-mart in northern wisconsin they have signs stating that there is to be NO overnight RV camping... I wonder why that would be?
Stupidity only gets you so far, then you've gotta try
I'm assuming the story means this in the literal, not the moral sense. It doesn't really explain why a "self-cleaning" toilet would become "filthy."
It says vaguely that "trash" clogged "the self-cleaning" mechanism. What kind of trash, specifically? Anything that you wouldn't expect to get thrown in a toilet?
Any traditional toilet would be able to handle (say) condoms, tampons, cigarate butts, baby wipes, etc.
In other words, is a toilet of this kind really an insoluble problem, or were these specific toilets just defective products?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Just gets better and better.
Still, you get the government you deserve.
Yeah, because it's so much better if you let the smack addicts do it anywhere.
I"ve got my qualms with the so-called "war on drugs" too, but I get tired of people blaming things like junkies ruining public toilets on the government, when the fault lies with junkies ruining public toilets. Nobody made that asshole stick a needle in his arm. And unless the guy was born yesterday, I'm pretty sure he knew what he was getting into when he chose to stick that needle in his arm. Everyone pretty much knows what happens to you when you start shooting heroin. So can we have a moritorium on the poor-drug-victim bullshit, please? It's the rest of us that can't do things like, oh, use a public toilet that are the victims, not the junkie. He did this to himself. And if the "war on drugs" goes away tomorrow, and we open thousands of utopian "treatment centers", junkies are still going to do things like ruin public parks... because that's what junkies do.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
That sucks, but this is how progress works. You can't know if something will pan out in advance, because there are too many variables.
And if it had been a massive success, $5M would have been pocket change compared to the convenience and cost effectiveness of full automation.
Setting aside the cost-benefit question for a second, the reason these toilets were "unsuccessful" has nothing to do with the toilets. From what I've read, they worked as advertised. The problem isn't technological, it's human, specifically the shady characters that monopolized the place. If "progress" wasn't achieved here, look to the lowlifes that ruined it for everyone else, not the product itself.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Mayor Nichols and the Seattle City Counsel are notorious for making stupid decisions based on no evidence. Between the high taxes, and these WTF decisions, I moved out of Seattle.
Don't Vote for Norm Dicks! http://www.nodicks2008.com Another nutless dirtbag that voted for the FISA bill!
This is like when they put up park benches that are intentionally made uncomfortable to sleep on. I understand why, but something is just wrong with society when that happens.
Uh, maybe because it's a park, and not a hotel?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
a friend of mine who for some reason unknown to me decided to roll a joint in there.
Some unknown reason? Maybe he wanted to get high?
I discovered that the best public toilet in the world, is the one in the Great Court, below the old reading room, at the British Museum, London, UK.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
at night when nobody wants to sit there, what have you lost?
It doesn't wear out that quickly.
600.000 a year a piece?
Now, what would it really have cost to have a toilet lady in a simple old fashioned public toilet who just cleanes the place, keeps an eye out on the area?
But no, the public toilets are closed, the toilet ladies fired and people pee against building and then we spend years trying to find high-tech solutions.
Say a single toilet lady makes 100k a year, a nice salary indeed for cleaning. That would have allowed 6 people to have a job, more then enough to keep one place staffed 24/7. No need for a 9/11 link or a 15 minute deadline.
Really, there is such a thing as overthinking a problem.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Way too easy, man.
AND the dutch toilets are NOT accesibale by the handicapped, this is a legal requirement in the US.
The US seems to have a lot of laws that were introduced to counter a wrong but then go to far because the wrong was ignored for to long. The pendulum in the US swings to extremes.
Nonetheless, these public toilets HAD to be accesible by the handicapped, that made them large enough to be used for other puproses and voila, you have a problem.
Of course, the solution, is terrible simple. Put down a small building with 5 regular toilets, some urninals and an extra large stall and use the money saved to employ half a dozen people to clean them and keep an eye out.
No waiting lines, cleaners who can deal with anything, human supervision, first aid post etc etc. It is easy, it has been tried and tested and we just can't seem to get it. Because goverment salaries have to be cut, you can't cut management, so you cut toilet ladies and then spend a fortune on all kinds of counter measures to people pissing against buildings.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Business owners across the city have been forced to figure out ways to keep drug users and others out of their bathrooms while keeping the toilets open to customers.
One UK town had that problem with drug users. There was a simple solution - they noticed that some restrooms had no problems with druggies even though there was the same population, same level of cleaning and security. The only difference was that the restroom had some rather cheap fluorescent lights of a single light wavelength. While this was adequate for basic hygiene and safety, it made it impossible for drug users to see their veins in order to use needles. As a consequence, they would avoid that particular restroom.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
fixing a broken window: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_window_theory
And Seattle knows about this very well: http://www.seattle.gov/police/prevention/Neighborhood/brokenwindow.htm
San Francisco has similar toilets, from JCDecaux. They're ad-supported, plus most of them charge money. JCDecaux, not the city, services them, and they do a relatively good job, which they have to do to keep the advertising contract. The San Francisco experience is that they work fine in the tourist areas and need too much maintenance in the homeless areas. SF gives homeless people a free token; it opens the toilet like coins, but the token comes back out the coin return.
Part of the problem was the insistence that they be wheelchair accessible. JCDeaux installs a smaller version in Paris, which takes up less space on the street (it will fit on most sidewalks), and isn't big enough for prostitution, drug dealing, or sleeping. But in the US, they're forced to install the big model, which is about the size of a parking space.
Palo Alto has two units. Theirs take credit cards. Really.
These things are far more expensive than they should be, costing about $1,000,000 each over 5 years. There's no good reason these things should cost far more than an SUV, but they do. I've seen the mechanism being serviced. It's put together from stock Telemechanique industrial automation components, which is reliable but is designed for one-off applications. If you built a washing machine that way, it would cost about $20,000. These things are engineered like prototypes. They need to be re-engineered for volume production and the cost brought down to under $50,000.
Hmm. Interesting.
At Canadian Wal-Marts near Banff and Jasper National Parks, there were quite a few RVs in the parking lot last time I was there (Early 2000s), and I have seen RVs quite a few times in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Vestal, NY.
http://www.freecampgrounds.com/othercamps.html says that Wal-Mart corporate encourages RVers to report such signage to them, as it directly conflicts with company policy.
From another article: "Unless managers decide to yank the welcome mat, or local ordinances prohibit overnight parking, the lots are open to RVs." - So your town could have a local law against overnight parking.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I'd say the main problem was the automated voice while you're trying to take a shit.
There was nothing at all wrong with the toilets it appears, but a more serious problem with the denizens of Seattle.
The versions in use in Paris work just fine, and have worked so for close to 20 years. Initially there was a (small) problem with people spending too long in there (for whatever reason), but a simple change to the software to open the doors after a reasonable amount of time to do what these were intended for fixed that problem.
The only other adjustment that was made was to reduce the sensitivity of the pressure sensor in the floor so that it registered small children - this after a dumb parent ignored the sign saying that children under 5 had to be accompanied by an adult, the toilet thought it was empty, and began its cleaning cycle.
If I designed them, I'd do two things:
1) I'd sell advertising on the side
2) I'd charge $0.25 for 15 minutes (with no ability to add $0.25 from inside).
Seriously, if you godda drop a duce, are you gonna use a free bathroom, or are you gonna beg borrow and steat a quarter to go to a pay restroom? Now imagine your wife.
Keep in mind these are all psychological, not "real". People will perceive the pay-restroom to be higher quality, better maintained (even if it isn't), and more sanitary.
Adding advertising makes it blend in with the fabric of the street. Right now, those damn things look like space age robots--very imposing.
I think Seattle made a mistake. No, the mistake isn't spending five million buckazoids on a few lousy toilets. After all, it is the purpose and mission statement of government to spend too much money on crap like this. And when the crap they spent tons of money on turns out to be a bad decision, they should spend even more money on even more crap to compensate for the problem, eventually building an entire bureaucracy around solving a problem that never needed to exist in the first place. So when the toilets became hangouts for crime, they should have hired security guards to stand outside the toilets to charge a security deposit and then check after each user that nothing has been damaged or vandalized before refunding it. This could be streamlined with the use of special toilet cards that you could apply for for a low annual fee of only $29. The card could be scanned upon your entering and leaving the toilet. Lost cards cost $19 to replace. Because all of this would be unfair for the criminals, they should build a structure near each toilet where crimes can be committed, in order to leave the toilets free for public use.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
"The misinformation you are spreading is killing people. Please, cut it out"
You're defending the virtues of heroin use, and I'm killing people? Did you write that with a straight face?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Seattle put too much trust in the ethics and morality of its citizens.
"Serve the state, Caligula, though the people in it are wicked beasts." -Tiberius Caesar
If Seattle can afford a monorail, surely they can afford to maintain public toilets!
But in a small wal-mart in northern wisconsin they have signs stating that there is to be NO overnight RV camping... I wonder why that would be?
If you remember what cousin Bubba Joe did at the wedding, you'd not want his RV within 5 miles of you, either...
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
and, even downtown, people have to piss.
I used to catch an early morning bus into town to catch a bus out of town the other direction for my DBA job. When one of the inner city malls closed its bathroom because it was encouraging the homeless to wash up, probably one of the boldest acts of civil disobedience I've done was find their office front door and piss on that since the building itself was still open.
Figuring I might not be welcome in that tower again, I got more observant of where to piss and began noticing when and where other people were pissing. I guess city councilmen have their priorities. If they would rather their downtown smelled like piss than risk somebody getting a blow job I suppose that is in their power to choose.
Personally, I was impressed by the public facilities I encountered in parts of Europe back in the 80s. Straightforward facilities with an attendant. The attendant typically sat at a table outside the facility when not actively engaged in cleaning it and had a plate for payment / tips. It was never clear to me whether the attendants received a base wage or just lived on tips, but they certainly seemed motivated to keep things clean. The facilities were always in good condition.
Such a system would seem to have a lot going for it. It provides some minimum-wage type employment. It provides high-quality public facilities. Unreasonable usage is obviously discouraged while, at the same time, attendants have discretion to serve the poor or unfortunate lacking in pocket change.
I am amazed at the intelligence on this board. Yes, we have a severe problem in the USA. Government corruption, corporate greed, and general dishonesty among the population has led us into third-world territory.
And it makes me sad.
I seriously consider moving to another country, but am nervous because I am not sure what I would do there.
Know of anyone who needs a good technician? :-)
You all take care out there.
-DWN2DV8
My wife says that the real purpose of McDonalds is to provide a clean place to go potty (if you have kids, the lingo sort of sticks) within 10 minutes on any highway in America. And if anyone here remembers the condition of highway rest stops in the past, you will understand why she is so appreciative.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
vandalism and theft put them out of business
Theft? Who the hell would steal a public toilet?
...addressing homelessness with affordable housing and decent health care - not by encouraging people to piss in the alley.
I'm (glad to be) Swedish. We don't have many homeless people per capita (probably in the order of tenths of times less than that of the US).
However, I don't know anyone who have used a public toilet. They are just absolutely disgusting. You go into a shopping mall or cafe or such.
Could be that we don't maintain the public toilets, and therefore they stink, or that the demand isn't that big. I dunno.
I just don't think that homelessness or a health care worth its name would fix this. I'm sorry, but I think it has to do with how people think about others, and respect their fellow citizens. If you don't care that someone might risk stepping in your crap, while taking a dump at the sidewalk, you'll just take that dump. It has to do with respect for others.
Sure, homelessness, failing health care, big crime problems, prostitution - all due to social issues - would just add to the problem. Of course.
I suspect that a better solution is to set up nice, multi-user bathrooms with an attendant. The attendant will keep out the drug users and prostitutes, keep the place clean, and call for maintenance when necessary. Sure, an attendant costs money, but it is probably cheaper than the maintenance and amortization on high-tech bathrooms like this.
In Toronto "the Good" I lived in one of the concrete towers in the late eighties. It wasn't cheap, merely affordable and available in the chronic housing shortage they have. The tenants actually dumped their garbage on the floor in front of the shute. Enormous roach-covered piles that nobody wanted to go near, never mind try to reach over, so the pile expanded rapidly. It was unbelievable insane and never solved. Every floor of about a 20 floor tower.
I live in Seattle and work 2 blocks from one of those toilets. I never used the thing. It is about a 20 minute wait to get in one and they are installed in the highest populated 'homeless camp public parks'. Seattle does have a lot of homeless. I live in Seattle about 5 miles north of dowtown. Just outside of my neighborhood we have 1 guy who has lived on the porch of a state gov't building for over 2 years. Plus 2 people living in a van just outside our window and yesterday I spotted a guy in our carport eating some old meat loaf out of the dumpster. This is in a neighborhood where a house costs about $500K.
If any random citizen was legally allowed to beat 'the shit out of them' them rub their noses in the shit they would soon find more responsible places to crap.
No jail costs, no public toilet costs, homeless attitudes improved. It's a win for everyone that matters.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
While the systems were being installed, a number of people who were going to work in the buildings found themselves having conversations with Breathe-o-Smart systems fitters which went something like this:
'But what if we want to have the windows open?'
'You won't want to have the windows open with new Breathe-o-Smart.'
'Yes but supposing we just wanted to have them open for a little bit?'
'You won't want to have them open even for a little bit. The new Breathe-o-Smart system will see to that.'
'Hmmm.'
'Enjoy Breathe-o-Smart!'
'OK, so what if the Breathe-o-Smart breaks down or goes wrong or something?'
'Ah! One of the smartest features of the Breathe-o-Smart is that it cannot possibly go wrong. So. No worries on that score. Enjoy your breathing now, and have a nice day.'
[...]
Major heat waves started to coincide, with almost magical precision, with major failures of the Breathe-o-Smart systems. To begin with this merely caused simmering resentment and only a few deaths from asphyxiation.
The real horror erupted on the day that three events happened simultaneously. The first event was that Breathe-o-Smart Inc. issued a statement to the effect that best results were achieved by using their systems in temperate climates.
The second event was the breakdown of a Breathe-o-Smart system on a particularly hot and humid day with the resulting evacuation of many hundreds of office staff into the street where they met the third event, which was a rampaging mob of long-distance telephone operators who had got so twisted with having to say, all day and every day, 'Thank you for using BS&S' to every single idiot who picked up a phone that they had finally taken to the streets with trash cans, megaphones and rifles.
In the ensuing days of carnage every single window in the city, rocket-proof or not, was smashed, usually to accompanying cries of 'Get off the line, asshole! I don't care what number you want, what extension you're calling from. Go and stick a firework up your bottom! Yeeehaah! Hoo Hoo Hoo! Velooooom! Squawk!' and a variety of other animal noises that they didn't get a chance to practice in the normal line of their work.
As a result of this, all telephone operators were granted a constitutional right to say 'Use BS&S and die!' at least once an hour when answering the phone and all office buildings were required to have windows that opened, even if only a little bit.
Another, unexpected result was a dramatic lowering of the suicide rate. All sorts of stressed and rising executives who had been forced, during the dark days of the Breathe-o-Smart tyranny, to jump in front of trains or stab themselves, could now just clamber out on to their own window ledges and leap off at their leisure. What frequently happened, though, was that in the moment or two they had to look around and gather their thoughts they would suddenly discover that all they had really needed was a breath of air and a fresh perspective on things, and maybe also a farm on which they could keep a few sheep.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Where they happily claim that there are no homeless people in their cities.
Then, when you point out homeless people sleeping in alleys, they say "oh, but they're gypsies." You know, because foreigners, especially gypsies, don't count.