Hand Air Dryers - Scourge of Restroom

Traveling this past weekend and purchasing 42 oz pops for 12 year old boys made public restrooms a common occurrence. One of the things I hate most about public restrooms are the stupid warm air blowers they have set up for drying your hands. It was comforting to read today that I am not alone! Scott Adams articulates it very well:

I know there’s some scientific principle involved whereby the movement of the warm air will, in theory, hasten the drying process. In practice, I’m fairly certain it’s nothing but evaporation plus the placebo affect combined with a process I call “giving up” and walking out with wet hands.

In the end, my fear of cooties trumped my distaste for inefficient Men’s Room technology and I went for it. As I stood there for what seemed an eternity, my thoughts drifted to my highly absorbent pants. Would it be so wrong to cut 60 seconds off of this process and just wipe my hands on the sides of my pants, carefully avoiding the crotch area?

So I picked two strategically unimportant pant areas, finished the job that the placebo started and went on my way. But I couldn’t feel good about it.

The thing that really bothers me though about the lack of towels in a restroom is that inevitably it is these same restrooms that require you to pull the door open by a handle used by every guy who has not washed his hands. What are you to do? Usually you sit at the air dryer until someone opens the door allowing you to escape, pull the sleeve of your shirt or coat down, or in desperation get some toilet paper (they have not come up with air dryers in the stalls yet).