Blow Me
A comedy article
by John Hargrave  128,751  73
04/20/2005 07:42 AM 386 views
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 Sometimes I need to tell you about a new product so fantastic that it simply cannot be hidden from the public. Today I will introduce you to the XLERATOR, a product that will, quite literally, blow you away.
But let's start at the beginning. Last week I complained about the automatic sensors in public restrooms, and the bizarre voodoo dance you have to perform in order to get the faucet to spit out any water. Several readers pointed out that I forgot to mention the most ridiculous use of the motion-sensor technology: automatic hand dryers.
Ah yes, the hot air hand dryers. Ahhhhhhh yes. Saying the word "Ahhhhhhh," in fact, produces more hot air than 90 seconds under the automatic hand dryer. What is the point of the hot air hand dryers? Because I know it is not to dry my hands. I think we're trying to save money on paper towels, but it would be more effective to just station a fat guy near the sink, and have us wipe our hands in his armpits. (Ladies' rooms would have a fat chick, of course.)
SHAKE EXCESS WATER FROM HANDS, many of the hot air dryers instruct us, but what they should say is, SHAKE ALL WATER FROM HANDS, BECAUSE YOU'LL HAVE MORE LUCK DRYING YOURSELF UNDER THE MOUTH OF AN ASTHMATIC FERRET. Can we not have some truth in signage? At least in the old days, they had the original instruction manual printed on every hand dryer:
This is what every hot air dryer said, and this is how every hot air dryer had been vandalized:
I am not exaggerating when I say there was not a hand dryer in the country without this little joke carved into the machine. I always wondered if there was some kind of Vandals' Union that canvased the U.S., chiseling out the metal with the blunt end of a cigarette lighter. "Hey, Tony! We just heard about a new one installed in Topeka! Let's go, before anybody has a chance to USE it!"
Eventually they began to phase out the dryers with printed instructions, replacing them with the automatic hand sensor model, which is an idea so stupid that we can only talk about its stupidity in analogies, such as by saying "roughly as stupid as a warehouse full of John Tesh CDs," or "stupid as a box of Paris Hilton's fingernail clippings." Stupidity this vast cannot be grasped by the human mind.
I guess I need to point out that these hand dryers already stop automatically. See #3 above. Instruction #3 was the only one they could not vandalize, because there are no funny words to be made from STOPS AUTOMATICALLY. So why would you make a motion-activated hand dryer? To stop it automatically ... which it already does! On the bright side, all the ridiculous hand waving you have to do, trying to trip the motion-sensor switch, might actually dry your hands faster than the machine itself. So in that sense, maybe the motion sensor was an improvement.
But not an improvement like the XLERATOR, which I encountered a few weeks ago at Boston Billiards Club, just around the corner from Fenway Park. If you are visiting Boston, and find yourself in the area, you simply have to stop in to try this thing out. It looks like an ordinary hand dryer, but you press the button and the machine BLOWS THE Frost-ing SKIN OFF YOUR HAND. It's like a small Midwestern tornado shooting out of a three-inch hole, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a roofing shingle or a stray cow come flying out of the nozzle. It is a life-changing experience.
Because you know what? The thing actually works. It actually dries your hands. Of course, they're no longer attached to your body, but hey.
John Hargrave, the King of Dot Comedy, is an author, speaker, and chronic handwasher. Past articles >>
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Side-splitting
93 votes
5.0
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Also Recommended on ZUG:
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0 votes
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Teh Original Chickens 286,527  61
04/20/2005 08:27 AM
STOPS AUTO MATICALLY
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHA
Boy, is Ally ever gonna be pissed.
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0 votes
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Fratberry 282,931 53
04/20/2005 09:35 AM
We have those in the restrooms in our building. When somebody uses them you can hear it everywhere. I imagine myself using these things while wearing flight deck gear and the Top Gun theme playing in the background. Except you can't hear it because these things are like JET ENGINES.
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Hilarious
1 votes
4.0
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Hammerhead 59,399 14
04/20/2005 11:28 AM
Stops A u tom at ically.
As if people really think that there's some atomic explosion coming from somewhere other than the last stall on the left.
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0 votes
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No_Key_Bandit 76,490 10
04/20/2005 11:50 AM
"It's like a small Midwestern tornado shooting out of a three-inch hole"
I am using this phrase the next time I go to a Mexican restaurant.
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Funny
1 votes
3.0
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twisat 18 9
04/20/2005 11:50 AM
Don't forget the the 4th instruction carved in by the Vandals' Union:
1. PUSH BUTT
2. RUB HANDS UNDER ARM
3. STOP AUTO AT ALLY
4. WIPE HANDS ON PANTS
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0 votes
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Livewire 78,229 13
04/20/2005 01:55 PM
Every automatic hand dryer in BC:
2. RUB HANDS VIGOROUSLY UNDER WARM AIR
^DINK
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0 votes
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sfphilips 0 8
04/20/2005 03:58 PM
I think that it's actually a hygeine issue. That big silver button that you had to press to get the air going was not ideal.
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Traclo 82 9
04/20/2005 05:55 PM
I saw one of those the other day. It was in an office bathroom. It was absoutly wonderful. I sat there placing different things under it for over 20 minutes, making them launch at the ground. I stopped after trying it out with my glass water bottle...
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0 votes
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baby boy adam 10 8
04/21/2005 12:11 AM
those goddamned hand dryer things go off when you are like 5 ft. away walking by but when you want to dry your hands what happens? they don't work! what the hell is with that?
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millie 116,988 28
04/21/2005 10:04 PM
We had those at the tampon factory. They dry your hands in about two seconds.
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Dentyne 0 8
04/22/2005 12:32 AM
Instead of wasting paper for hand towels...
We can burn coal to power automatic hand-dryers.
Environmentalism at it's finest.
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0 votes
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lacedvixen 0 8
04/22/2005 02:26 AM
automatic stuff in bathrooms is for people like me..
people who keep rubber gloves in their purse, so they don't have to touch the doors or toilet handles.
People who take paper towel to open the door with
People who keep sani-wipes i the purse to sanatize toilet seats with before sitting down on them.
and yes, for people who push the buttons on air-dryers with the elbow, as to avoid the germ-infested hell that is the public restroom.
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ringworm 68,315 13
04/22/2005 04:16 AM
the rest areas along the kansas turnpike have motion sensing paper towel dispensers. that's all i have to say about that.
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0 votes
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Kevlar 0 8
04/22/2005 11:47 AM
The vandal's union appears to have local chapters. John, not too far away from you in RI we have the pictorial instructions that (graphic 1)show the button, and red wavy air blowing onto the hands (graphic 2).
The damned thing always has "Push button, get bacon" scribbled over it.
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bignorm 874 9
04/23/2005 08:48 AM
hand driers should be outlawed. damn newfangled gadgets. if restaurant managers & owners weren't so damn cheap, we'd have papertowels no matter where we went. damn the man!! We should boycott anyone who doesn't supply papertowels--especially mcdonalds. its not like you'll miss it, their food sucks anyway.
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0 votes
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intrepid 5 8
04/23/2005 10:41 PM
wow - i thought I was the only one who had experienced the magic of the XLERATOR at an Indianapolis Speedway gas station - they're spreading! Soon, dry hands for all!
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0 votes
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dclayh 0 6
02/13/2007 05:43 AM
Everywhere I've seen, it's
Stops autom atically.
Telling you how to score drugs, I suppose (nevermind that "alley" is misspelled--or maybe they mean find an "ally" and stop next to him).
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Dogs Akimbo 211,569 32
02/13/2007 05:55 AM
Dude, you're talking to dead people.
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Dogs Akimbo 211,569 32
02/13/2007 07:17 AM
You, too.
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PraM 80,722 42
02/13/2007 04:23 PM
John is in rare form in this article. I laughed my ass off. (Which is better than having it blown off by that hair dryer)
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Fratberry 282,931 53
02/13/2007 04:41 PM
You're so helpful.
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