Dry hands right now

At the beginning of the Summer, I was out with the family and none of us was able to dry our hands effectively after using "the bathroom" in a new Cork restaurant.  Ellen DeGeneres doe sit much funnier as she riffs on the evolving technology of hand-driers. We're back in The Institute now and I'm having to pee on company time. Some of the hand-driers are antiquer than others and I was tickled to notice that the pair nearest my office are called "Worldwide Driers Tempest". This is more aspirational than appropriately metaphorical - unless it's a reference to the length of time taken to dry the hands being the same as a reading of Shakespeare's play.  New parts of the campus, nearer the President's penthouse office, are equipped with Dyson Blade driers which has a decibel rating 85dB a little less than that of a lawnmower 90db. You should wear ear-defenders for anything more 85db. And it also makes a difference that the hand-drier is by definition at arm's length while the lawnmower is that plus the lawnmower's arm away.

I note that UC Santa Cruz, aghast at the statistic that 1 third of to-landfill traffic was paper towels from bathrooms in halls of residence, is now recommending that students bring a few hand-towels to campus along with lots of t-shirts and devices. Here are some earnest UCSC students embracing the plan to save the planet. "instituting this change campus-wide would save as many as 1,400 trees, that's, like, a forest" True dat, if a forest is one hectare in extent.

ANNyway, I have now taken my own advice and take a small towel 30x30cm to work to dry my hands after rinse. It may not be super-sterile, but at least it's my germs being transferred from hand to towel to hand. I am now adding hearing-loss the the ever increasing list of accumulated deficits as I age. Using my hand-towel is saving the old lugs further insult. I don't want to spend my declining years asking mumbly students to repeat everything repeat everything repeat everything they say.

Towel? You should try it; should dry it them!