Whatever happened to the simple act of drying your hands? It used to be so easy: walk into the bathroom, do your business, wash your hands, and reach for a paper towel.
Paper Towel Peeves: no more hand dryers! Dead trees only! Share on XOdds are there would be a loose slip of paper dangling within easy reach. A gentle yank would release that into your grip, and renew the cycle as a tiny fold expanded and released from the pile. It was quick. It was easy. I liked it. Now, even that simple pleasure is denied me.
The Disappearance of the Paper Towel
Try to find a paper towel dispenser now. Just try. Finding a paper towel dispenser that actually works is like sighting a snow leopard: extremely rare. Worse, when you do find one, how often is it that some janitor has placed the stack of towels upside-down?
Try as you might, you can’t pull down a single towel. You have to make a Herculean effort to push the stack upwards, grab a pile of paper, and yank down. Even if you use two or three, you’re left with a stack of unused paper towels.
You might as well throw them out. Who’s going to use them? Put them on the counter and see who touches any. Nobody. Nobody’s going to go near those towels. They’ll repeat exactly what you did and wind up with their own useless stack. What a waste.
Hand Dryers
How many different types of hand dryers are there? Has anyone actually counted? And do any of them work? Sure, if you want to stand there for ten minutes for the sake of saving a tree. How much of that tree are you actually saving? A few branches? A couple of twigs? I put five times that amount out with my lawn waste every Friday.
The latest model forces you to lower your hands into the “drying zone” where once you remove them they’re almost as wet as they were before you put them in. The instructions advise you to shake your hands before using. I’ve got a better idea: how about if I just use a paper towel to actually dry them?
Without paper towels available, you almost have to go back into the stall and unroll a wad of t.p. to get the job done. Good luck scraping all the clingy pieces off your hands. That can’t be hygienic.
Bring Back Paper Towels!
As for me, I’m done with hand dryers. Done. I’ll wipe my hands on my jeans, or suffer with lingering wetness before I subject myself to another hand dryer. Bring back paper towel dispensers! Let’s dry our hands like civilized people again!
Acea
Take napkins from the dispensers if available to dry your hands and open the door handle going out. It’s not for the environment as much as it’s less cost for the establishment. (Hotels want us to re hang our towels to dry now also, instead of issuing a whole new set every day also, they say its for the environment also which makes some people more respectful than if they were blunt and said it’s less costly for them) I can respect that. Theyd pass on the cost to us anyway. But it would be nice if the would refit the exit door of the rest room to swing out so we don’t have to touch it with clean hands.
Robert
Yes, I hate the dirty handle!