Soap Dispenser Lament

A soap dispenser should just sit there and not bother anybody until someone pumps its head and then it should just dispense a glop of liquid soap and not be a source of frustration. I call it the manual glop dispenser; time-tested and proven reliable.
Then there’s a kind now with an aerator head that delivers a foam puff instead of a viscous glop. I call it the manual foam dispenser.
But civilization and marketing foxiness march on. Now there’s one with batteries in it, four at a time AA. When you put your hand under its spout a motion detector senses movement and dispense a glop of soap. I call it the automatic glop model.
So we have manual glop, manual foam and automatic glop, or just auto-glop.
We had the manual glop model for years and I was a happy guy in the soap dispenser contentment part of me.
The manual glop is trouble free. If I wanted soap I simply pushed down on the pump head, out squirted glop into my waiting palm. I even refilled the dispenser in a show of domestic content.
Then one day my manual glop dispenser was gone. In its place was a new soap dispenser. It looked like a manual glop dispenser but it wasn’t I pushed down on the pump nothing came out, I pumped again, nothing I fiddled and fussed with it, pushed down on the pump and out came a fat white caterpillar of foam!
Wow! I thought. I did it again, another caterpillar emerged. I said you stay right there. You’re going to be okay. I was content. Fool!
One day I did some garden work and entered our house with well soiled hands. I thought, piece of cake, a couple of nice foam puffs and I’d scrub away the dirt.
But what happened was the manual foam pump wouldn’t. The head would not move. I couldn’t depress the pump head. I pressed down so hard it left an imprint on my hand; nothing
Still mentally in the manual glop paradigm I opened the dispenser to pour a little soap in my hand. But I tilted as though pouring manual glop. This soap was thin and runny. I spilled half a dispenser-full
After a while the manual foam dispenser and I came to an uneasy truce. I backed off if it did not want to pump. Okay, okay, okay, I said. I then snuck a manual glop, from my faithful, time tested old dispenser where it stood banished to the cabinet below the sink
I sent a complaint up through the chain-of-command to the boss, in other words, I bitched about it to my wife. Oh, oh, you are probably saying to yourself right now, shouldn’t have done that! You’re right. That was a mistake.
Not long thereafter the manual foam dispensers disappeared, each replaced by a contraption that looked nothing like a soap dispenser in my paradigms.
It was indeed a glop soap dispenser. But it heralded arrival of the humble soap dispenser at long last into the electronic computer chip age, lagging far behind irons, toasters, bathroom scales and warmed toilet paper dispensers (Hey! I heard they have ‘em in Japan).
The instruction manual in 15 languages said, “Modobudug! Undugoo mobzskm infidelabad,” oops wrong page. It said, “STOP! Before attempting initial startup you must register for the webcast How to Startup class. Upon completion you will receive a code that will unlock your Model b-19F-1ng k1DnMe Autosan.
Now right there I thought that was a little excessive. But in the spirit of marital accord I resolved to give the infernal contraption an objective, an unbiased, an open-minded try before rejecting it.
I understood nothing in the webcast. But at the end I got the unlocking code. I put the four AA batteries in, no power. I took them out and changed them around, no power. Finally on the fifth configuration I noticed an on/off switch. Huh, I thought. I moved the switch to on and a power pilot light came on. I looked around to see if anyone had seen me work through a new personal stupidity nadir. I thought I could see my wife in the shadows of the dark hallway to our bedroom eyes semaphoring exasperation.
A little after 1 a.m., I somehow stumbled my way into entering the unlock code. Then I put the soap cartridge in. Oh yes my friends, no more primitive refillable container/pump in one. Modern technology is one time cartridge based. My auto-glop was ready for operation. I smiled smugly. I set it on the counter and, with a flourish and a “Ta DAH!” I swept my hand under the spout and in way of the inexorable cyclopean, baleful red detector eye. Yes, that’s right, nothing happened.
I uttered an overused but cathartic expletive and went to bed. At 4:15 I was wide awake. I returned to the fray. I swear the electronic sensor eye followed my movements. I picked the damn thing up and looked it right in its eye. That is when the bold print on the cartridge caught my eye. “UNIT WILL NOT FUNCTION IF CARTRIDGE IS REVERSED WHEN INSTALLED.” The next line said “FRONT.” I looked at the position of the detector eye and what I now understood was the auto-glop spout. They were on the opposite side from the word “FRONT” on the cartridge. I bit my thumb knuckle to stifle a whimper. When I tried to extract the cartridge to turn it around and insert it properly (WIL YOU PLEASE QUIT GETTING AHEAD OF ME!) it would not budge. After several minutes of cursing the mothers of all the engineers who had worked on this bloody device and pulling like my life depended on it the cursed cartridge popped out.
I reversed he cartridge and it slid home with a reassuring click. Since I was holding the Auto-glop in way of the motion detector eye the device sprang into action, whirring and straining gears as though constipated it deposited a glop on the back of my hand. I put it down on the counter. Once again it whirred and strained excreting a glop onto the sink. I moved it to wipe up the glop. Whir, grind, plop; it deposited another glop on the counter. I thought about having my first cigarette in 20 years but opted instead for three fingers of Jack Daniels. I decided to turn the machine off in order to move it. Carefully approaching from its blind side I reached for the on/off switch but bumped it so that it tipped over. Whir, grind, plop. I went and poured my drink. Then I went and pushed back in my recliner to reflect on life. From the bathroom I heard a faint whir, grind, plop.
End