September 21, 2012

"Hand dryer in the men's room... It's very posh, but I don’t like it."

"You have to put your wet hands between two blowers, that are motion-activated. It’s a small space, and you need to have the steadiness of a jewel cutter not to touch the sides – and pick up some stranger’s shit spores. It’s almost like playing Operation, and who needs that kind of stress?"

The Dyson Airblade is just one of 8 things about Sam's Club that bug Jeff Kay. (Via Metafilter.)

41 comments:

Palladian said...

I hate all of Dyson's ugly, crappy, overpriced products.

Sorun said...

Shit spores my ass. I like those Dyson hand dryers. I guess I should've been a surgeon.

kentuckyliz said...

I like it, but I have long, thin, lovely hands. Some guys have big stout fat and/or muscular hands.

What's worse--to a guy--accidentally touching another gut's shir spores, or his dick spores?

kentuckyliz said...

Why would there be spores? Presumably one has washed one's hands.

Paddy O said...

They have those at a lot of local movie theaters.

So not like Operation. It's the easiest thing in the world to use. Very quick.

You'd have to be a drunk Waco Kid not to be able to use them right.

Paddy O said...

But yes, they are certainly ugly and overpriced.

God, An Original A-hole said...

Ewwww... COOTIES!!!

Lem the artificially intelligent said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MaggotAtBroad&Wall said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MaggotAtBroad&Wall said...

For some reason, I am not moved by privileged white liberals whining about insufficient luxury. Perhaps he'd be happier if he re-located to Africa where native people often wipe their nasty ass with clumps of grass?

Ambrose said...

Hey Maggot, my forebears moved out of Africa and invented toilet paper for a reason...

DADvocate said...

you need to have the steadiness of a jewel cutter not to touch the sides

The guy must be a klutz plus OCD. I prefer paper towels though. All the blow dryers blow germs all over the place, whether you touch them or not.

jungatheart said...

Shit spores?

I've seen countless women wash their hands by rinsing their fingers, sans soap, under the faucet. So blowing germs around at high speed isn't a good idea, either.

Freeman Hunt said...

Who would go on free day? I won't even go on Saturday. Too crowded.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

I concur with whoever is unimpressed by Dyson stuff.

I wish we had a Costco here in South Texas, but we have to make do with Sam's. Don't think I haven't considered driving the six hours round trip to the closest one, on the north side of San Antonio, though.

Amusing blog post, but he wasn't hard enough on the sample hooverers. Why is it always when I'm just trying to buy my groceries and get out of there before my two year old completely melts down that every three hundred pounder in the tri-county area has to stand completely stationary, blocking every aisle, and stuff his or her fat face with as much disgusting frozen snack food as humanly possible? Really, Bertha, you don't need to either sample or buy the mini taco quesadilla enchilada bites.

Gabriel Hanna said...

The Dyson Airblades throw the water on the floor, and that's why I don't like them. A high-traffic area will get a wet floor, it won't have time to dry. The Costco in Maplewood has one right by the entrance. There's a second one, on the wall farthest from the entrance, which no one uses. Poor planning all around.

Rabel said...

The Romney tax thread combined with the execution thread seems to have sucked away most everyone's sense of humor.

Nice find, Professor. I bookmarked the site.

Methadras said...

They have these hand dryers in SFO (San Fransisco Airport) and people just fuck with them without washing their hands.

J Lee said...

The XLerator hand drier is the way to go -- works way faster and the air flow out of one of those things could launch a space shuttle (albeit the noise from one can also drown out a space shuttle). They've had them at the Stripes c-stores in in West Texas for t 5-6 years, and I saw one a few months ago next to one of those Dyson's (don't remember if it was a Sam's, but I do remember tying to avoid the Dyson as much as possible, since the ones I've used tend to be so sensitive you get about an equal amount of hand drying from just waiving them int he thing trying to get the #$%&8@6$! sensor to activate).

Alex said...

Can anyone explain me what is the point of turning on the faucet and rinsing your finger tips for 5 seconds? Why even bother?

Chip Ahoy said...

To rinse away the shit-spores that were floating around, he answered Alex.

The antique bottle that someone dug out of a trash hole in England and sold on eBay that I bought, I thought was collected with the rest. It was so simple, open the packages, collect the bottles, throw away the packages.

So how then can it be that I accidentally throw away that first bottle?

It was a big pile of packages all gathered and thrown away at once.

I held the bottle and showed it to people, I showed you.

All that just to send it back to the dump. A different dump. On the other side of the ocean.

Well I was wrong about that, the bottle came in the mail today. I got confused along the line somewhere, with all these bottles and with pictures of bottles. So I'm glad about not being a ludicrous bottle waster and sad about being so scattered.

edutcher said...

Sounds like Titus on a lot of caffeine on a very bad hair day.

Guy needs a smack in the head.

At the very least.

(no offense)

AllenS said...

Wouldn't it be the reason that you need to use the hand drier because you just finished washing your hands? Or, are some people thinking that they, for whatever reason, stuck their hands in the toilet bowl?

Tags: non-story

kentuckyliz said...

The staff ladies room is just across from my office. It has a recently installed Xlerator. I hate the damn thing. It's so loud, that if I'm visiting with a student, we stop talking while it's running, because we can't hear each other. No I haven't habituated it. Hate hate hate.

Rusty said...

Samples Assholes

Yep.
Why people think shopping is a social event is beyong me.
Get in. Get yer stuff, and get out.
And don't block the isles. I WILL push your cart out of the way.

Sam vfm #111 said...

A sailor and a marine are taking a piss. The marine washes his hands, the sailor doesn't.
Marine, "The Marines taught me to wash my hands after taking a piss."

Sailor, "The Navy taught me not to piss on my hands."

Moose said...

They're "Dyson Airblades" and not unlike Obama and Apple products - they're smarter than you.

If you don't like them, you're stupid.

virgil xenophon said...

I see Ky Liz has a new makeover and is showing some leg.

Rowerrr..

Jason (the commenter) said...

I think those hand dryers sell because the people who buy them aren't the people who use them. They're meant for public places.

The guy who buys them thinks they'll make the bathroom look "fancy", most everyone else is disgusted.

Jason (the commenter) said...

Palladian: I hate all of Dyson's ugly, crappy, overpriced products.

They're selling the aesthetic of "gadget". Their ideas need some refining before they can become more than that, but at least they're being innovative, and I can appreciate that.

kimsch said...

Kentucky Liz,

I hate those XLerators too. If you use one, it pushes the skin on your hands around. And it's too loud. And it still doesn't dry your hands.

They have the Dysons at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. The kids like to use them. I like a towel.

I almost always have to use my pants to help dry my hands when using any dryer.

Sometimes I either bring some napkins along in my bag to use in public restrooms or I just bring a bottle of Purell and use that instead.

ad hoc said...

They have those in a lot of public restrooms. The do effectively dry in a short period of time. But, they're in places where a true germaphobe would want to use paper towels to turn on/off the faucet (if no motion sensor) and open the door to exit. So, they're okay as long as you don't have to touch the other moist, germ laden stuff.

Ann Althouse said...

I saw those things at many rest stops on the interstate when we were traveling last summer. The notion that they are "posh" is new to me.

I hate them for exactly the reason stated. You have to try too hard not to touch the edges and you know it's impossible that the edges aren't touched frequently by the same people who are careless about what they get on their hands and how well they wash. In other words, they are gross!

Joe said...

Tangential observation: I can't remember the last time I saw a guy not wash his hands. Yet, female friends say they see women not washing their hands all the time. Yet, it seems it's women who constantly harp on men not washing their hands.

Alex said...

If you think about it, the whole idea of the public restroom is fucked up. You first have to open the door on a completely contaminated metal handle. Then you have to touch the flusher on the urinal which is even more contaminated. Then you turn on the faucet, handle is contaminated. You wash your hands thoroughly with soap, then turn off of the same contaminated handle. Thus, all your washing just went to shit. Then you push the door open on the metal plate which is 100% contaminated. Thus the only thing you actually accomplished was to evacuate your bladder and bowels.

jungatheart said...

Dyson makes an incredibly well-engineered vacuum cleaner. It has a cannister that empties into the trash can by the bottom dropping open, and lots of other well-thought-out features. Also not too loud. My mom had a Hoover that sounded like a jet engine. I recommend testing one before buying your next vacuum.

Known Unknown said...

If you use one, it pushes the skin on your hands around.

Which is so cool looking. Like G-Forces.

Gospace said...

I don't know what backward part of the country that Alex lives in, but 90%+ of the men's rooms I go into have automated flushers and automated faucets. Don't have to touch a thing. And compared to any other air dryers, I love both the Xlerator and the Dyson- they WORK. Predfer paper towels, but, having to stuff them into an overfilled container ain't too sanitary either. Not that all restroom operators don't make sure all the time that their restrooms are perfectly taken care of...

kimsch said...

@Deborah,

I love my Dyson Animal Vacuum cleaner. I have three cats and a Siberian that shed (the Siberian especially). I used to wonder why my bagged vacuums worked so crappily, it was because the bags filled up so darn fast that the vacuum wouldn't work anymore.

I can easily see when to empty the Dyson.

MDIJim said...

You learn something every day. Into my 70s, I just learned from this thread that women fail to wash their hands after evacuating bodily wastes; and all along I thought it was only oafish boors, aka men, who walked out of the rest room without even glancing at the sink.

Maybe agoraphobes, like paranoids, know something the rest of us don't.