The recreation-center water fountain sprays everywhere except into my bottle

The water fountain outside the gym has two buttons. One produces a weak arc that barely clears the drain. The other launches water past the bottle opening and onto the front of my shirt.

I discovered the distinction five minutes before a class. I pressed the second button harder, assuming pressure was the problem. The stream hit the underside of my bottle, ricocheted upward and left me looking as though I had lost a very small water fight.

A teenager waiting behind me pointed to a strip of tape beside the buttons. Someone had written SLOW and FAST in faded marker, but the words were almost gone. He chose SLOW, tilted his bottle sideways and filled it without incident. I thanked him with the dignity available to a person dripping on the floor.

The fountain is not completely broken. It has a local technique, passed from one user to another. That works until the person behind you is new too, or the faded tape finally falls off.

I told the front desk that the fast button overshoots bottles and the label is unreadable. The employee put an orange cone beside the fountain, which made the area look more dangerous without explaining how to get water. She also wrote a maintenance note.

At the next class, the cone was gone and the faded tape remained. I used SLOW. The shirt stayed dry. I am now part of the oral tradition.