Bathroom sinks

How the hell did free-standing basins become all the rage?

I know where they came from. Some MAN needed something new to push on the gullible American public. Like shoulder pads in women's dresses, or clubby heels in their shoes, or changing the acceptable paint colors in houses, or changing the shape of cars so that trim, neat lines turn into "this bar of soap has been used too many times" lines (that is, cars now look like bars of soap, so you had to dump your old car with its straight lines and get a melted-bar-of-soap car), or taking kitchen appliances with their shining black faces, sharp and crisp as they were, and replacing them with brushed stainless steel (and its attendant constant coat of fingerprints), so too we had to get rid of the nasty old fashioned (?!) countertop with sunken basins.

So first came that idiotic Euro sink. (I was in Europe at the time, and never saw a single high-rimmed sink there). Oh, boy, look at that, modernity! Only the big fat ridge kept you from pushing water and stray whiskers and anything else that got caught on the counter straight into the sink. Admittedly it wasn't often you needed to do it, but it sure made it easy to clean such a counter. So damn stupid.

Then came the free-standing basin. No countertop at all. No place to stand a bottle of liquid soap, no place to lay a stack of guest towels when you have your friends over for lunch, no place for your toothbrush cup to stand, not even a fluffy little decoration. Gone, too, the cabinet underneath, that provided valuable space to stash cleaning items, the hotcurler box, the ultrasound jewelry cleaner, spare light bulbs, air freshener. Those all have to go in another cabinet. Bye-bye, several extra cubic feet of space. Gone the drawers where you kept your spare towels, your hair brush, your electric razor. Where do those all live now? Certainly not on the rim of the stupidest household item ever invented, the freestanding basin.

Now we have our counters back, but the "chic" place to have this counter (always granite, hideously expensive) is on a table which is allowed a shallow drawer or two for toothpaste and hairbrush. On top of this fiercely expensive counter stand two bowls, outrageously expensive things of various shapes, colors, materials, and styles. Very up to date, very chic, very impractical. For one, if you slosh water over the side, you get to pick up that water. No wiping it over the side into that nasty old sunken basin. For another, from what I've seen, many of them have an unreachable dirt trap underneath, so that you can't mop up water underneath the bowl if it has gotten right to the center and your fingers can't reach. Many people will never figure out to use a towel like dental floss to get the wet out from under the bowl, or won't do it three times a day. Thus there will be mildew and other nasty crap under there. Always.

Well, MEN ... male designers ... I don't care if you're gay, that certainly doesn't make you women, and you don't have these practical considerations. You're interested in cutting edges, advancing design, and making a name for yourselves.

I don't buy it.