County Line Kafe

County Line Kafe

West Bend, IA

Reviewed August 29th, 2005

"Does it light up?" she said, regarding the sublime, post-post-modern wall mounted hand soap dispenser. "No," said I, temporarily lost in a legal and appropriately used as indicated allergy medication induced glassy eyed stupor. "But it looks like it could." Just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Gorbachev called it Glasnost and Perestroika: freedom and openness, if I recall correctly. Those concepts, which were bad for communism seem to sit well with restroom trends toward transparent sanitation delivery devices. It started with plastic, tire-sized toilet paper rollers that looked like they could contain rolls of T.P. that came straight from the paper mill, but more importantly you could actually see the product waiting inside, begging for consumption. It provided a sense of security. You knew exactly how much was there. You knew the price of freedom, or at least the quantity. The trend continued with transparent hand soap dispensing, the pinnacle of which we find in the County Line Kafe. It does look as though it could light up. Simply knowing how much fecal bacteria it can kill, while gently soothing my Man Hands with its emolliating, hydrating microbotanic naturalizers, I feel like I could easily become an obsessive-compulsive hand washer if only I had the option to live forever in the single entry, gender specific restroom at County Line. Maybe the word "stupor" whatever the origin—says too much about my fascination with the transparent soap dispenser. Maybe I should be looking for professional help.

But maybe you should be careful, dearest reader. Perhaps this type of wall mounted, gravity based hand soap dispenser is like a million tiny sharpened Bermuda Triangles, waiting like a kaleidoscope to lure your innocent mind and stupefy it with antisocial hippie culture or dangerously non-conformist rock n' roll dancing...bad dancing, dirty dancing. Suddenly the voice of a trickster burro emanates from the dispenser: "Is okay to do the dirty dancing because the soap, it clean you up. Are you understanding me, senior? Tee, hee, hee, hee, hee."

A bout of nausea hits and suddenly you are overwhelmed with peals of lewd giggles that come right from a B-movie madman. Who is the madman? Get him out of here! Take him back to the Madman Asylum. But you look in the mirror, and his face stares back at yours, the red glazed eyes, unkempt hair, the drooling, open mouth of the reefer crazed dullard! "Its him! Its him!" you cry, but him is you and your burro knows it and so do the CIA spooks that filled you so full of acid that a drop of your spit could send a thousand ravers on ten thousand trips to every loose end of a universe laid out with fraying ends of Quantum Theory. Whoa, baby. Whoa. It'll be alright. Think Val Kilmer thoughts without Oliver Stone movies. Shhhhhhh.

- Justin Teerlinck

RESTROOM RATING: 8
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