Dyson

I was in a mall bathroom yesterday, where I encountered an interesting gadget called a Dyson Airblade. It sounds like it should be an extreme sport, but it's for drying your hands after you wash them.

Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm fairly old-fashioned, and would probably guess, correctly, that I'm a paper-towel man when it comes to public bathrooms. I find the only good use of a hot-air dryer to be warming up my hands on a cold day, but after examining the Dyson and deciding that it probably couldn't hurt me, I tried it out.

There's a narrow slot to put the hands in ... too narrow. My hands aren't especially large, but I kept brushing the housing, which means I was trading germs with the previous guy and leaving my own for the next one.

The high-speed airflow comes out in a thin, blade-like stream which doesn't dry hands nearly as well as you'd think. It isn't warm,either, so all things considered, it's a step backward from the already-inadequate dryers we've been using. I still ended up finishing my bathroom visit by wiping my hands on my pants.

I understand Dyson vacuum cleaners are pretty popular - maybe he sucks better than he blows.