what's that for?

Ok, now I'm gonna talk potty.  That's right.  Potty.

I suppose it won't surprise you too much if you've known me longer than about 5 minutes that this was the very first photo I took on UAE soil.  I had just walked a looooong trek from the plane, after a loooooong flight from Atlanta, and up an escalator with Karen (my travel buddy and teammate) when we spied the ladies' room.

The reason the potty is so interesting to me is that it's one of the major ways that I'm reminded several times a day that American culture is just weird.  Even when I was young and we went to England, I used to think it was so funny that European bathrooms had bidets, when it is the U.S. where BO is so taboo.  Americans get a whiff of someone that isn't minty fresh and oh my goodness...  you'd think the olfactory assault is intended as an individually targeted affront.  For those of a certain age, I'm compelled to remind you of the Seinfeld BO episode.  Seriously a classic, but it highlights a key American oddity:  how is it that a culture so hyper-obsessed with cleanliness just has thin-and-often-translucent tissue available in the potty?

And then I came to the UAE.

Here, all the (ladies') bathrooms have an actual hose with a sprayer at the end, just like the one on your kitchen sink for washing dishes or vegetables or the sink.  Well.  After unknotting my brain from the mere contemplation of the thing, my reaction was "yeah, that's going to be a mess," and I had a vision of myself, juggling a stuck sprayer and basically having my own personal typhoon in the stall.  So.  Not.  Happening.  

Ah, but I'm the curious sort.  And, I'm reminded that there is a strange little device in the potty several times a day.  So eventually my curiosity reached a boiling point.  I had a little side convo with Imane (our team facilitator and my primary informational source for all brain-knotting questions) concerning the logistics and usage of said device.  I probed with the most burning questions.  Requested follow-up information.  Walked through the project steps, requested confirmation.  Considered stakeholders.

So, for several more visits to the scene of project completion, I continued to look, consider, and mentally walk through my strategy.  Task analysis.  Risk consideration.  Contingency identification.  Finally, I took the matter into my own hands and, you'll be pleased yet relieved to know, emerged not only triumphant at my successful project execution but without the telltale signs associated with personal typhooning.

So, in line with effective completion of any project, here are some lessons learned:

1.  That is a firm spray.
2.  Sometimes the water is COLD.
3.  Spraying may be a better wake up mechanism for the late afternoon slump than a bucket of espresso or running from a herd of stampeding camels.
4.  Lesson #3 is especially true in the case of Lesson #2.
5.  If you don't notice paper isn't available post spray, it may lead to a cascade of different problems.

And, of course, the most important lesson of all:  Americans are so weird.  #ibmcsc uae