Let’s pretend you’re on vacation in London with your family. You’ve spent the last several months planning this trip and saved up for it even longer. The day is all planned out: morning at the British Museum (I’d love to see the Hadrian exhibit), take the tube to Westminster station (the kids love “Minding the Gap”), check out Westminster Abby, walk across the River Thames for a ride on the London Eye before hopping back on the tube for some dinner plans across town. A perfectly planned day, except in the middle of your London Eye ride, it stops and you’re stuck there for over an hour trying to get your kids to urinate into a plastic bag. There goes dinner and the rest of your plans for that day.

(more…)