I Was Blown Away By What I Saw Today

For some reason while I was drying my hands in the bathroom at our library today I got to thinking about how blow dryers used to be the hot thing in bathroom drying technology. I know, I know, I think about weird topics at weird times but what can I say, that’s just me.

At one time it seemed like dryers were the future and that paper towels were soon to be non-existent in public restrooms. Blow dryers were touted as “green” because they didn’t use paper (a renewable resource) and they were considered more sanitary because you didn’t have to touch anything. Of course blow dryers use electricity which is often generated by burning coal(renewable if you wait long enough). And with towels you only have to touch a clean piece of soft paper but with the early blowers you had to push a button.

Lately I’ve been noticing a distinct shift back to paper towels. Some bathrooms have both a blower and a towel dispenser but in large part the towels are making a big comeback. I have no proof of this. These are just my own limited observations.

But I digress. I was standing there drying my hands when I started wondering just how clean the air was that was blowing down on my newly washed hands. Surely it must be just as clean as using a towel, right? After all it’s a mechanical blower. It doesn’t get touched by human hands.

There was no one else in the room so I quickly squatted down and looked up at the air outlet. I was disgusted with what I saw! The outlet for the air was caked with brown and black grime. It blows down but somehow the dirt had blown up! The worst part is that I had been blowing that crud all over my clean hands.

The Toto “Clean Dry” Hand Dryer

 

From what I saw, it’s probably more sanitary to not wash your hands at all than to use some bathrooms. Maybe I need to start carrying around a little bottle of hand sanitizer. Or maybe I should just stay home. If I become a recluse I won’t have to worry about public blow dryers anymore. This must be how psychoses begin. I’ve got to stop thinking so much.

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