Thursday

Day Two of the conference is now done. I'm taking a pass on the annual "yea-hoo"dinner to share wine later with Rosie and Tom. Doing a little shopping at a wine store on the way home.

I've been meaning to opine on this next topic for quite some time, but I keep forgetting about it when sitting in front of the computer. My time on the road over the last few weeks has given me exposure to good research.

Drying towels in public rest rooms. Actually, of course, some public rest rooms have air dryers, so maybe the topic should be drying devices in public restrooms. Then too, not all of these facilities are open to the general public (most are), so a modification of the adjective "public" might be justified, but why quibble on the obscure?

Anyway...

The truck stop at the Route 21 interchange on I-80 has the old fashion, rollered cloth towel machines mounted on the walls. Boy, with that high of traffic, you have to wonder how many times a day the janitor has to switch out those machines. Who does the laundry? How many of those things are still in service? I'm thinking that there must have been a profitable business at one point for a laundry that did those towels, restaurant table covers and napkins, and the like. Now?

The airports mostly have paper towels of some sort. Many now have automated machines that feed a 10-12 inch sheet by use of an electric eye. Some are mechanical that you need to pull a lever similar to a slot machine.

Finer restaurants and conference centers will often have somewhat softer, more-padded paper towels simply stacked to the side of the sink.

The country club rest rooms will usually have separate cloth hand towels. Often monogrammed.

Then, of course, you get to the Big City and the hotsy-totsy places have attendants in the rest rooms and they hand you the towels, (giving true meaning to the term "hand"), which you then feel obligated to tip for in the very visible tip jar. (Didn't they have attendants in the Wrigleyville bars? But they might have just been stationed there to cut down on the drugs and sex in the facilities. I digress.)

Most truck stops have gone to the towel dispensers not unlike the ones used at the gas pumps for washing windshields. The pull/rip from the bottom style. Functional and easy to maintain.

All of these places run out of towels at some point, and it's time to dart into a stall and unroll a little TP.

For the record, my current habits are to dry my hands, then take an extra sheet of the paper to use to cover my fingers/hand to open the door. Howard Hughes lives.

Hope this has been illuminating to all.

BCOT