The right to decide when to flush

Who invented automatic flush toilets ?  Seriously.  As you may or may not know - I am a self professed germophobe . The thought of touching the toilet handle horrifies me.  But I am content doing it with my foot .  In fact before she was old enough to be conscious of the stares it ilicited...I had my daughter trained to walk into public washrooms with her hands high above her head so as to avoid  accidentally coming in contact with anything undesirable.  Now she realizes that her mother is a bit of a freak ! But  I digress .

I am proud to say that I have made the decision as to when to flush ever since I was trained to do my business in the toilet .  It is one of the few decisions that I get to make all on my own , in privacy and  with no input from others.  So I resent this decision being taken away from me !   I get to choose when I am ready .  You know, when I am done and ready to say good-bye as it were .  I get to make sure that I am prepared - do you know what I mean ?  Certain things have to be in place before that final and definitive move is taken that forever says good-bye to the contents in the bowl.  I need to have completed the clean up to my particular specifications.  I need to be standing an appropriate distance away from the toilet so that I do not horrify myself with the possibility of getting small particles on me, and I need to be mentally ready to hear the flush sound .  For years I have chosen the moment that this happens.   I have become good at it .... as I am sure you  all have as well.  In fact , for most of us it is something we don't even think about anymore . We are able to quickly assess the situation and then "go for it."
Taking this decision out of my hands puts me in a bit of a panic.  The first thing that troubles me is when is it going to happen ?  Is it going to happen as soon as I get up ? Will I be in the middle of the clean up process ? Will it get me when I least expect it ......say when I am dropping the paper into the bowl .  Sometimes these questions plague me to the point where I cannot perform . The pee literally gets scared back inside ! I also worry about the volume and ferocity of the flush . Given that I do not know when it will happen , I am all the more focused on it .  Will  I be startled by the loud noise and put myself in a position where I am too close to the bowl and inevitably get covered in a fine mist of waste ?
How does the toilet know when I am done ? How can it possibly know ? This is the problem folks - it doesn't.   As my daughter puts it  "it flushes as soon as you get up and you don't have time to wipe, then you have to sit back down and your bum gets wet."   Now at this point many of you are thinking that perhaps the wiping should happen when you are still sitting . This is a possibility in some cases ....... but not all. ( if you know what I mean )  Because the timing is always wrong a second problem arises . How do you get the toilet to flush again so that you leave nothing behind ?  Or what if you create something that warrants a double flush?
Today , while at a conference in a hotel , I spent the better part of 15 minutes trying to get the bloody toilet to flush again ! You should have seen it . It was like some kind of sick and twisted interpretive dance .  I think I  will call it "ode to the flush."  There I was trapped in the stall flayling my arms around in front of the sensor , banging on the seat with my foot.  I even resorted to begging .  Finally - I found a small metal thing at the back of the toilet that made the toilet flush when I hit it - thus forcing me to actually touch the  back of the toilet - making whole concept of the automatic flush redundant !  By the time I was finished I was convered in sweat and really wanted to take a shower .  Who the hell created these things and more importantly , who was the focus group that did the testing ?  Fastest wipers on the planet that's who !  Just one more decision taken out of our hands.  I for one am going on record as wanting to re-claim my right to decide when to flush !