I had a disturbing experience today, in the men’s room.

(If ever there were an opening sentence calculated to send most of our readers running from their computers, doing their Edvard Munch “Scream” imitations, that ought to be it.)

But honestly, this post isn’t about the natural functions of the human body. It is about plumbing, but the brass-and-chrome kind.

I called our maintenance guy yesterday, to let him know that the automatic flush devices in the men’s room had stopped working. I’m sure you’ve encountered such things. An electric eye senses when someone comes close and then goes away, and at that point it triggers a flush. The electric eyes here had stopped working.

So the maintenance guy came to look today. He passed his hand over one of the electric eyes.

The device flushed.

He tried the others. He found that sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn’t. They definitely need maintenance.

But the thing is, he was able to trigger the electric eyes some of the time.

I tried it again. Nothing.

It was as if I were a walking phantasm, a shadow being, a monstrous thing of mist compounded.

I was a little afraid to check the mirror, for fear I’d have no reflection. (But I did. It was OK.)

Still, it was a troubling experience.

Then I thought, “Maybe I should make lemonade from this. If I’m invisible to electric eyes, I might have a brilliant future as a jewel thief.”