It's time to get something straight. I don't know what granola junkie techno-fascist Earth Day engineer designed the hand blowers that are replacing paper towels in public restrooms across the country, but I'd like to replace all the towels in his home with one of these mosquito-fart devices and see how long he tolerates it before he starts doing like the rest of us and drying his hands on his recycled cotton pants. The worst part is the little lecture that's written on the newer ones. You remember, the first one gave us directions, in case that big metal button on the front wasn't clue enough ("Push Button. Rub Hands Until Dry."). But soon every twelve year-old with a penny in his pocket was changing the directions to "Push Butt Rub a ss Until Dry." So then we just got a picture of a finger touching a button -- and we've seen the creative art that inspired. So now we get an environmental science lecture, about how the blower saves a tree, and is more sanitary than paper towels.

Since when did trees rate higher than human dignity? So long as Yellowstone has a tree standing, no American should have to huddle under one of these transgendered vacuum cleaners, pathetically rubbing his hands like a fly on a ham sandwich. What's more, who are they kidding with this sanitary nonsense? Which of my readers hasn't been dutifully washing his hands in a public restroom, only to look in the mirror and see some greasy tub of lard exit a newly polluted stall and stride right on out the door? Without paper towels, there's nothing between you and that contaminated door handle. So you have to stand there, trying not to look like a lurking pedophile, and wait for someone to come in and thereby free you from this feces prison, because for some reason bathrooms are immune from the fire code requiring doors to open outward.

Let's be honest about this. Restaurants put these things in because they're cheaper than paper towels. But they don't want to admit it, so they buy dryers with this eco-babble on the plate, to make me feel good about the fact that the waiter is hitting on my woman while I try to create fire between my palms. Pretty soon they'll start installing those Al Gore toilets, the ones that only use three tablespoons of water to flush, and then western civilization as we know it won't flush down the tubes, oh no, it will get stuck because there isn't enough counterweight in the tiny government-regulated tank. Meanwhile we'll be rubbing our hands down to bloody little nubs trying to get those beads of water to defy physics and disappear from our skin.

It's enough to make me give up public restrooms altogether. Don't be surprised to read that I've been arrested for relieving myself into a fish tank display at Wal-Mart.