The Grand Experiment

If this thing could put up outdoor Christmas lights, I'd marry it:

It speaks kindly to you, it soothes you with music, it cleans up after you.

It's not your mother. It's a restroom.

The automated public toilet that Fort Lauderdale plans to try out at the beach does the job of a whole crew of employees, but doesn't need health insurance. It locks up at night, and opens for your business in the morning.

It knows when you're inside. And if you're not moving, it worries that you might have fallen over dead. So it flings the door open and a siren screams.

It welcomes you when you walk in, and talks you through the experience, with soothing music adding to the ambience.

City commissioners voted Tuesday to pay $25,259 to an engineering firm to design the site and deal with state permits for a structure so close to the ocean. Only Vice Mayor Carlton Moore voted no.

Fort Lauderdale can expect to spend $250,000 to $350,000 for the robotic restroom with one commode, plus about $30,000 a year to service and maintain it. The city hasn't selected a manufacturer and will put out a request for bids. The commission then must vote to buy the restroom.

This part should should warm the dingleberries of Sheryl Crow's heart:

It's a little bit bossy. The robo-john gives you a prescribed number of toilet paper squares. Government officials will decide how many squares you get to start with, although if you insist, you can get more.

It should be two squares max, to be henceforth referred to by the collective noun a 'crow of toilet paper.'

Naturally there's some Uncle John bureaucrat who thinks it would just be another instance of flushing taxpayer money down the commode, but I think it makes a lot of sense. Hopefully they'll get an equine version for this lady.