To Pee, Wash and Be Gone

Arthur Hoyt Scott has much to answer for.

He’s the scion of the Philadelphia Scotts who, in 1907, invented disposable paper towels for public restrooms.

If only paper towels had stopped there, as hygienic convenience.

But no. Towels must be delivered into dripping hands. And from that sad fact have come the contraptions behind more irritation than any others in modern life.

Paper towel dispensers.

They have tortured untold millions, the wretched rabble like us who want only to pee, wash and be gone.

You’ve been there, grabbing a dispenser’s paper tail.

And the towel tears.

Or there is no tail, so you reach inside – and the dispenser’s teeth, meant to cut paper, lash your fingers.

Automated dispensers are uniquely villainous. They disgorge a measly 4-inch strip. Or, worse, they whir but dispense nothing.

Today, Kimberly-Clark, which in 1995 merged with what once was the Scott family business, also markets towel dispensers, including the model that assaults me daily at work: the “Professional Sanitouch Hard Roll Paper Towel Dispenser,” available for $109.99.

I call it something else.

The SaniAnnoy Irritation Dispenser.