The Real War in America's Public Bathrooms; The Air Dryers

I am growing tired of our freedoms being taken away. Everywhere we go, we get less choice. It’s GD Unamerican, I tell you. Well, I for one, am making a stand and demand we get our choices back. My first step in this war is the men’s room. (I assume the ladies feel the same way, but my visit time in the ladies’ room has been severely limited as of late. So you broads need to stick up for yourselves here.)

Can we please just get rid of the hand dryers? In more and more places, the good old paper towel is being replaced by these inefficient blowdryers.

The Art Department at K Theory is just phoning it in these days

Yea, yea, the argument has been “hand dryers create less waste.” All over, we see stickers proclaiming that hand dryers are saving the rainforest, keeping the earth green and hated Batman Vs Superman. It’s time to really examine all these fantastic claims.

Now I like being kind to Mother Earth. I recycle all my empties. I try to be moderate with my utility use. I actively skip shower day and wash my hair less frequently. I’ll wear the same things around the house for weeks. I only flush number twos. I don’t have offspring that will only create generations more drain on the planet’s limited resources.

Just a lil' eye opener before work...

Is the “rain forest” even a great rallying point anymore? Remember when the urgency was that the ”rain forests will disappear in five years” like twenty years ago? Well, we barely hear about the rain forests anymore, and to the best of my simple understanding, they’re still around and breeding venomous spiders. So, all this “saving” has gotten us what? I’m seriously starting to doubt this whole recycling idea. With all the recycling this country does, shouldn’t things like paper and aluminum be getting cheaper? All I know is the price of my high octane, rot-gut cans of beer keeps going up. Why am I doing this again?

In fact, I am sure valid research will soon prove hand dryers are actually much worse for the environment; much like oil in the ocean and Pitbull on the radio. So let this be the genesis of the argument.

Point one; they just don’t work. This fact is evidenced by the thousands of public restrooms I’ve urinated in and the hundreds of times I’ve washed my hands. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a machine with a powerful enough ‘blow’ (for lack of a better term) to sufficiently dry my hands. It’s been my experience that most machines are the equivalent of having a child blow; which is something Jared Fogle can identify with.

"Anyone want to get in my pants? Anyone? Plenty of room."

I will further bolster point one by pointing out the resulting behavior that only serves to confirm the fact even more. Fellas, we see/do this all the time. (And I’m pretty sure you girls do it too, you’re always sneaky.) We wash our hands, then rub them under the dryer. After a few seconds, it’s painfully clear that if we want our hands to actually be dry, we’d be better off waving them up and down like we’re landing a plane. Eventually, we give up, and wipe our hands on our pants. Yup, ladies, we do that all the time. Hell, you probably do, too, you’re just more sneaky about it.

Point two; they are not more “sanitary” than paper towels. This makes no sense to me. How is it more sanitary when the dryers just blow the germs all over the place? Yea, what did you think, the germs just magically disappear like greenhouse gasses? When you use the dryer, you’re essentially using a machine to sneeze all your disgusting germs all over the place. How is that more sanitary? I am pretty sure there is no more bacteria encrusted spot than the area immediately beneath the dryer in any public restroom.

Chloe was never much good at blow jobs...
(Alternate caption: I am sure this is Rule 34 for some of you sickos.)

All those germs build colonies in the dark recesses of the restroom. Beneath the sink. In between the grout. On the top ledge of the mirror. It’s a miracle we’re not all sicker, really. Common sense tells you you would want to capture the bacteria in one place and be done with it. Not splatter it throughout the Burger King restroom, you hag.

You don't wanna know what I'm doing with my other hand.

Don’t believe Dr. Theory? Fine, here is proof that jet hand dryers are actually worse than using paper towels.

With paper towels, you can physically wipe the icky stuff off onto the paper, and throw the whole germ circus out. The germs die a pleasant death in the trash. End of story. The Plague is thwarted. We all get to watch the next season of Daredevil.

Point three; those dryers use energy. Nowadays, some decent places have a magical paper towel dispenser where all you have to do is Jedi your hand in front and you receive the paper towels you are looking for. Because electric hand dryers are so inefficient, it takes far more energy to get your fingers just ‘mildly damp.’ Hell, those things would go on all day if you just kept your hands under the nozzle. Sure, some of the more uppity restrooms will provide you with a sign and a few statistics about how much energy the dryers save, but that is just about as effective as the “all employees must wash hands” sign. Go do the math you see, it simply doesn’t add up.

Even if you actually have to touch a bar or lever to manually progress the paper towels out, it wastes no energy and you can still wipe off any remaining germs or bacteria. So, if you use the blower, you hate the Earth no matter how many goddmaned Priuses you drive.

My gas is gluten free and my playlist is full of bands that never even got together.

Anyway, aren’t Kindles and Google books drastically reducing the need for sheets of paper? Why can’t we trade of that loss with paper towels so everyone doesn’t get sick?

Now that I have finished this common sense piece for the betterment of America, I'm gonna go drain the dragon and wash my hands with soap for 20 full seconds and use a GD towel like a GD American.

As always, thanks for reading.

Especially you, Stuart.

DVD Bonus Content-Extra Commentary

Truth be told, this post had been sitting in my computer since last August. It was originally meant for a writing gig I had at the time, but I never finished it. Now with all this controversy over transgender bathroom use, I thought it would be a good time to dust it off, update some of the pop culture references (there was actually an Ashley Madison reference, since this was written right around the time of their data breach.) and finally share it with the world. And now I think the world is a better place for it.