The Touch Faucet

From December 6, 2009

I was reading a National Geographic and I came across an ad for the touch faucet. It showed a lady’s arm, her hand covered in dough, gently touching the faucet with her clean wrist, and water coming out. The design of the faucet was sleek and beautiful.

I took the ad to Zac and without any introduction, I declared, “This is what we need.” Some might argue with my choice of the word “need.” Clearly, on a list of needs, a touch faucet ought to be far near the bottom, perhaps just above hot tub. But Zac and I were at the beginning of remodeling our kitchen, and we’d already turned down the salesman from Sears who claimed the faucets in his brochure cost $500. We would need a new faucet anyway…well, we needed a new sink, an under-mount, and when you’re spending so much money on a new kitchen anyway, it’s easy to justify a new faucet too. Especially if it’s a touch faucet.

We looked it up on the internet, and after watching a demo video, we found it was sold at Lowe’s for about $350 dollars. On our next trip to Lowes, we checked it out. To be fair, we made ourselves look at all the other faucets, determining that the touch faucet clearly beat all of them. The switch for toggling between sprayer and jet streams was on the back, so it wasn’t visible. The nozzle that came down was held in by a magnet, so the nozzle wouldn’t, after wear and tear, dangle. It had a sleek yet highly functional design and wasn’t that much more expensive than regular ones.

We bought it right then. It was the first time I can remember being directly influenced by an ad. I’m sure I had been subliminally or subconsciously influenced by many ads, but this is the first time I can recall seeing an ad for something I had never seen before and then almost immediately rushing out and buying it. But my brother always says, “You vote with your money” and I wanted to vote yes for great ideas combined with great design.

It was about two months later that the faucet was finally installed. Our kitchen had a new floor, with tile and grout instead of three layers of dated, torn linoleum. We had a new quartz counter top that replaced our wood-grained, early-eighties countertop with shiny metal strips in the joints. In those two months, we’d also had our yard completely landscaped. Those projects had been bigger and far more expensive, yet it was the faucet that gave me the most joy.

It worked perfectly. With the regular handle, I could set it to the desired temperature and pressure, and then every time I touched it, it came back at that setting. Being one who still washes dishes by hand, this was a significant convenience. After just a couple of days, I could barely take it anymore. The faucet was too good, too perfect. “Zac, we went down on Madonna too soon, too soon!” I lamented. (Click here for the lyrics to the Dan Bern song in order to get this reference). “We’re never going to be satisfied with another faucet. We’ll have to install it in every future house of ours.”

A day or two later, we were at the annual dinner for our Peace Corps Association, and Zac got to talking with some ladies who worked at RTI, a big company that does lots of international work. One of them mentioned to him a GIS contract in Zambia. We’d always thought of moving abroad again, having loved living in Namibia and China and always feeling wistful while just traveling through countries as mere tourists. Maybe this was the world calling again, saying “Come, there is more to explore, don’t settle for your quiet street in Cary (5th safest metro area in the nation, number one on a list of smartest cities) and your great job at that school (ranked somewhere between 20th and 34th best school in the nation)—isn’t it too easy? Aren’t you bored? You’re not even miserable enough to write anything anymore.” I got that glint in my eye, the glint that had taken us to Namibia and then to China. Zac said, “This would be good for my career.”

Then I thought of my faucet—my beautiful, perfect, touch faucet. I also thought of my tile floor and my quartz counter top, and my yard that now had grass and clearly defined islands, but mainly I though of my faucet—perfection of design and innovation married and installed in my kitchen, turning on and off with just a touch. I also remembered what I had hated about Africa: always being white, never fitting in, being stared at, being begged from, being unable to find chips and salsa. Our faucet in Namibia had been fine enough, except that sometimes, for a few hours or a few days, no water came out of it.

The next day, even with the wine worn off, Zac was still thinking of the five-year GIS contract in Zambia. I said, “What about our faucet?” He said, “It runs on batteries, we’ll take it with us.”

While doing laundry, I started to remember what I had loved about Africa: the challenge, the beauty, the chaos, the tenacity of the people. I remembered all that I experienced there that didn’t happen here where everything functioned so well: having chickens, hitchhiking, random luck, stunning nature…

Within a few days, Zac and I were living happily in Zambia. I was running a colorfully painted hostel, where the foreigners who came through participated in “culture corners” where they chatted with the locals and maybe even some more formal classes in English for the kids. I was still working out the details of the classes. The travelers could leave behind their stuff, which was then sold, thrift shop style, with the money going to local groups supporting orphans. I had kids too. My job running the hostel was flexible enough, and the labor was cheap enough to hire plenty of helpers. We bought watermelon juice at Shoprite and I learned to make homemade salsa. I ordered tortilla chips online or had friends ship them. There were also cooking classes offered to the tourists by local women. My hostel helped the economy and promoted cultural exchanges. I had forgotten all about my touch faucet in the same way that I completely forgot dishwashers existed while I was in Namibia.

Zac sent his resume to the woman. She replied saying she would hang onto it, but the details of the project were uncertain. They were not even sure if it would be an expat position—they would probably try to hire Zambians first.

With a tap on the touch faucet, Zambia ran through my fingers and down the drain.