Welcome to this newly renovated bathroom. It could be in a bar, a restaurant, or even a house. The bathroom itself is of a fairly normal size. The toilet is also a normal size. Me, the sink? Tiny as hell.

I mean, there’s room in here for a normal-sized sink, but all you get is little old me.

At first, the uninitiated don’t realize that anything is wrong. The brain hasn’t had time to process what’s amiss, like the initial glance at a spot what’s out of place in this picture activity. I’m a cruel trick on your visual perception. You might even think, “That’s a cute little sink.”

It isn’t until you’re standing directly in front of me, hands out, faucet running, that it starts to dawn on you: something screwy is going on here. This sink isn’t cute. It’s uselessly tiny. You’ll wonder if you’re being pranked or if you’re an unwilling walk-on in a new Rick Moranis movie, Honey, I Shrunk the Sink.

I’m inconveniently tiny. Inexplicably tiny. Infuriatingly tiny. If you didn’t have anger issues before, you do now. I’m so small you’ll wonder who the hell in their right mind created me. Someone who was inspired by airplane bathroom sinks, that’s who!

Minimalists think I look sleek and describe me as “chic.” But, boy, am I ever impractical! I hope you weren’t planning on properly washing your hands in here. I know that, in theory, my sole purpose is to be a place for handwashing, but that’s not really what I’m all about. I’m more like a bowl of plastic fruit. I’m basically for display purposes only. Contractually, I fulfill the obligation of this bathroom containing something resembling a sink.

You’ll puzzle over my design. It’s as if a minimalist made a stripped-down to its bare essentials sink and then someone else came along and said, “Good, now make it Godforsakenly tiny.” Then a third person came along and said, “Why is this sink so big? Make it four times smaller.” And, voila! That’s me, the tiny sink.

I never tire of watching people try to use me. First-timers are always so naively optimistic. They don’t realize how difficult I’m about to make their lives. After all, I’m just an innocent little sink. Go ahead, try to fit both hands under the faucet at the same time. I dare you!

Oops, did water splash on your pants and now it looks like you peed yourself? I’ve got bad news for you, chump: you aren’t Billy Madison and peeing your pants is not “the coolest.”

My size also makes it difficult to wash up without having your hands brush against the interior of my basin. Never has a hygienic act felt so primitive and dirty.

Sloshing around my confines, your appendages are nothing but filthy hand-pigeons in a birdbath. You might as well be scavenging for fallen French fries on a patio.

Unless you have miniature baby-sized hands, trying to use me is an act of contortion. Whatever water splashes from your hands and doesn’t make its way onto the crotch of your pants will pool on the floor because there is no countertop. It’s just me, a tiny sink.

If you’re a guest in someone’s bathroom, you better be very deliberate about your hand movements. In order not to splash and make a mess, you’re going to have to take things down to an almost Matrix-like slow motion.

At the very least, using me will make you truly appreciate even the crappiest of regular-sized sinks. Filthy truck stop sink? You’d step over your own mother to use it if it meant not having to “sink” to my level. A 17th century farmhouse sink with no plumbing, just a basin of water? Yep, still way more practical than a tiny sink.

The people who design tiny sinks are part of the same cabal as the people who design women’s clothing without pockets. They’re more concerned with form than function. And they genuinely enjoy creating frustrating experiences. I am but a loyal servant to their cause.

Sure, you can try to outsmart me. Angle your hands just so. Cup the water. Pretend this is fine. Pretend you are fine. But deep down you know: you’re not washing your hands—you’re participating in performance art about futility.

And when you finally give up and leave the bathroom, defeatedly wiping your half-clean hands on your pants, you’ll glance back at me. And I’ll be here. Waiting. Proud. Perfectly useless. A tiny porcelain monument to the triumph of aesthetic minimalism over the human experience.

Tomorrow? Someone else will walk in. Someone with hope. Someone with dry pants.

Not for long.