You know the drill, you're out and about, enjoying a nice steak or depositing a check or two ... when out of the blue your body alerts you that it is now time to head to the WC. A small inconvenience to say the least (abnormally small in some cases). Fast forward a few minutes - adding extra time to ensure you find the stall without the glory hole (unless that's your thing) - and it's time to wash your hands. A bit of unusually cold water, seventeen futile pumps on an empty soap dispenser, and it's off to dry your cold dripping digits and continue your day.
Or so you thought.
You now discover some Inquisition-like manner of torture meant to dry your hands. After twenty or thirty years of life, you are stricken with childlike awe as you gaze upon what must be the T1000 of drying mechanisms. Some strange device sent back from the future to dry your hands - for if left wet, they may go on to lead the human resistance.
Let's start at the beginning.
Here's the primordial ooze of paper towel dispensers. The one your mom and dad used. This is the dispenser that they put in the kitchen of whatever fancy dining establishment you frequent. It's the janitor of paper towel dispensers. You crank, you tear, you dry, you leave. It's the Steve Gutenberg of paper towel dispensers. You loved it in the 80's, and now you wonder where it went, but only because I reminded you to.
Still in use today, ol' cranky here is sure to be as effective as pumping water or jerking off a goat - in that it is repetitive but not without an end result.
[see dry hands, fresh water, goat semen]
Now this one is a bit odd, and I've only used one of these once or twice. This is something more along the lines of what you might find in an executive bathroom, or an old country club. Here we have a real towel, actual linen, which loops around this aluminum 8-track cassette of a hand dryer. As it makes its rounds, the towel drys and is ready for another use. Of course, if you should haphazardly cornhole yourself through the Charmin (as we are prone to do when rushed ... or itchy), this fancy linen will ensure that several hours later, some geezer will dry his hands with shit and embarrass himself for the rest of his miserable existence.
Nothing quite like drying your hands on something that makes you want to wash them over again. OCD much?
Another tried and true mechanism here. This aluminum beauty contains cute little folded towels. All locked up and nowhere to go. You can't really knock the technology here. Stacked, shiny, simplistic. The downside here being that empty feeling you get reaching for a towel only to discover an empty hole with a razor sharp edge. The sort of dangerous hole one might find at Andy Dick's gerbil farm. Either way, you will leave with bloody fingers. In addition, if you're like me, it takes about 47 of these paper towels to dry my hands, and they're packed in so tight I rip tiny LSD sized snippets leaving my hand tarred and feathered with 80% post consumer confetti.
At the very least, at least you'll be entertained by the plethora of gang-related engravings. A solemn testament to our violent past.
Sad really. Just ... sad.
Enter this douchenozzle of a dispenser.
Cylindrical, center pulled nonsense. Like the inverted baby wipes of ol', this roll of towels is pulled downward from the center. Utilizing every diametrically opposed force in the wrist, MIT dropouts have developed the first truly legitimate way to induce carpal tunnel. You grab ... pull ... pull harder ... twist ... rock back and forth ... pull a bit more ... and then with one leg against a lime green tile wall you attempt to get them to release. No dice.
45 minutes later, after speed bagging like Rocky on meth, your hands are dry.
Again, we see idiocy in form and function. This 'automatic' dispenser requires you to pull the paper towel down to a point of release, at which point a mechanism cuts the paper towel in cute zig-zaggy lines and leaves 6 inches or so for the next guy (are we still talking about the glory hole?). Two problems here:
1. You must pull down with force so even and accurate that it can only be replicated by trained Shaolin monks. The rest of us will again rip confetti out of this mess until breathing a collective "fuck it" and using our jeans.
2. Whoever designed this knew all along that it didn't work, so much so that there's a little retard-knob on the side, so when you fail - and skip the jeans option - you can turn the knuckle-spraining crank on the side to release more paper. And of course since you have more paper, you are free to repeat the whole process over ad nauseum. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Now to the most familiar, I'm sure. Ol' lever pull here is probably the most seen, and the most reliable, at least for the 30 or so days it's under warranty. After that, all bets are off. You'll find broken pull levers, plastic covers that won't stay closed, and the inevitable turbo spring meant to collapse the fingers in the "it's broken" direction with its metric ton of opposing force. Fortunately, since your hands are still soaking wet, the lever usually slips off after half an inch, thus preventing permanent damage. All in all the true beauty here is the transparent cover, meant to inform the staff that supplies are low. Instead, they only serve to mock your pissed-on hands and laugh as you stare toward the floor tile in disappointment, realizing all too late that you have been denied basic inalienable hand-drying rights.
Now we come to my personal favorite. This dolt-proof dispenser relies on one simple motion ... push, push, push. And it comes complete with a giant gray lever lets you know "Hey you wanker! Push here!"
And you do. Quite painless really. But the true magic of this design is that when the dispenser is empty, it improves the overall experience. You see, when the above dispensers are empty, you wallow in self pity, cursing your own existence ... moving your 'going postal' moment a fortnight closer.
With this dispenser, it doubles as an aggression-sponge. You push, and nothing comes out. So you beat the ever-living-shit out of it. You push that little gray lever right through the goddamn wall! And if your hands aren't dry by the time you finish fist-raping this machine ...
you're not trying hard enough.
And speaking of rape. Here we have the worst of the worst. This maniacal device was developed during break time by the Manhattan Project. The theory here being that the little infrared detector will sense your motion and dispense paper towels like pixie dust. But instead, I stand there waving my hands like an idiot trying to trigger the thing. Motion activated my ass!
Unless of course they mean that the drying of my soaking hands is motion activated, because if that's the case, mission accomplished. I just shook 3 ounces of water clear off my fingertips, you assholes!
Nothing says I'm gay like standing in a crowded men's room with 'jazz hands' waving. Meanwhile, that little red K.I.T.T. light mocks my pain. If this robotic piece of shit had a voice, it would be an eternal loop of Satan's laughter.
So, let me get his straight, we can develop forty two million ways to
NOT dry my fuckin' hands. But we can't get the electric car right.
Nice. Just great. Real good America.
You know, the 'glory hole' option is starting to look better and better.
Yours Truly,
Jimmy
P.S. Just had to mention 'glory hole' three times in one post. Now somebody owes me lunch.
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