Put your hands together for this truly amazing news

Hand Dryer It's a public-restroom miracle Date published: 6/6/2008 P ERHAPS IT'S ODD to have one's faith restored while standing in the bathroom of a sports bar. Yet that's exactly what happened to me last week. Allow me to explain. I had long ago given up using those hand dryers mounted on thewalls of public restrooms. In fact, "hand dryer" is a misnomer. "Hand clamifier" would bebetter, since all they really do is blow stale air on your hands,making them damp and clammy. And that's only after standing there with your hands extended for10 or 15 minutes. I don't have that kind of time. And even if I did, I wouldn't choose to spend it in a publicbathroom, particularly when roving bands of toilet-paper thievescould swarm the place at any moment. You probably didn't realize that could happen, but it's the onlyreasonable explanation for why rolls of toilet paper--at least inmany women's restrooms--are quite literally locked to the wall. In nice, peaceful communities that haven't yet been victimized bythese gangs (cue birds chirping), one need only tug gently on theend of the toilet paper roll, and voilà! the paper unfurlseffortlessly into the hands of the needy party. In areas plagued by bathroom-tissue bandits, however, fearfulbathroom operators have installed the toilet paper equivalent ofbars on the windows--a small, metal bolt that prevents the rollfrom spinning. With this contraption in place, a tug nets you a square of paper at most. To get any more than that requires a complicated, hand-over-handprocedure in which the needy and thoroughly exasperated partyliterally unwraps the roll of toilet paper, roughly two inches at atime. By the time a usable amount has been gathered, the woman has longsince forgotten why she's sitting there. Perhaps she'll remember while waiting 15 minutes for her hands todry. For years, my fiance and I have scoffed at the hand-dryer concept,emerging from public restrooms with wet hand streaks on our bluejeans, the international sign for "there's a hand dryer in there,but no paper towels." He still laughs about a particular hand dryer he spotted at arestaurant once. On the front were these helpful instructions provided by themanufacturer: 1. Shake excess water off hands. 2. Turn on dryer. 3. Rub hands vigorously under air stream. Under that, someone had scrawled a final, more useful tip: 4. Wipe hands on pants. I'm not entirely sure why I decided to use the hand dryer in theladies room last week at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Fredericksburg'sCentral Park. Maybe because I was wearing linen pants and they're not asabsorbent as denim. In any case, I rolled my eyes and shoved my dripping hands underthe air vent of the XLERATOR. I distinctly remember a shaft of light shining down from theheavens (though I suppose it could've been a fluorescent bulb) andthe sounds of an angelic chor-us. And when I looked at my hands no more than 10 seconds later, theywere dry. Really dry. Not that soggy, sweaty-palm-like sensation that passesfor dry with most of these machines, but actual, bona fidelack-of-water dry. I was stunned. Sure it was a fluke, I wet my hands again and shovedthem under the dryer. Same thing happened: heavenly light, angels singing, dry hands.