Presumably he means the paper towel dispenser doesn’t work and neither does the blower; but what exactly is he expecting the paper towel dispenser to do?
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Comics I Don't Understand 
He’s expecting it to dispense a towel using a proximity sensor, but those sensors are often a crapshoot.
In real life, there is usually some sort of manual override though.
He finds that waving his hands around trying to get the paper towel to dispense works the same as a blower, then deduces that that was the intention. It saves both trees and electricity!
Oh, wait – it appears he is wiping his hands on his shirt in the last panel. Maybe he means that both blowers and inoperative paper towel dispensers are the same, in that you need to find an alternative drying method in both cases.
Waving your hand in front of the sensor is supposed to dispense paper towels. Frantically waving your hands in front of an ineffective sensor air dries your hands. Not very well, but about the same as a blower.
Mythbusters took a look at air dryers. The results were not great. Not only do they blow bacteria-laden water around the room, but users tended to have higher counts on their hands because they got tired and quit while their hands weren’t quite dry.
The fundamental problem with the motion sensors on those towel dispensers is that the people using them have just washed their hands with insufficiently warm water. (In Germany, many public bathrooms offer only cold water.) The sensor reacts to infrared radiation, and the cooled-off hand just can’t provide enough. Sometimes it is possible to fool the system by putting your face in front of the sensor (at a safe distance, of course), and then use the cold (wet) hand to block the warmth coming from your face. The disadvantage is that this will provoke strange looks from anyone else present.
The blowers blow hot air at your hands. They dry your hands by blowing the water off your hands and onto your shirt.
This ineffective-motion-sensor-blower does not turn on, but the result is the same as if it had… Arlo’s hands are dry, and his shirt is wet.
“but what exactly is he expecting the paper towel dispenser to do?”
Um… dispense towels?
Did you not get it was a motion detector?
I have only seen a motion-activated towel dispenser once in my life.
Well, granted it might have been more than once, because my life isn’t QUITE boring enough that this was going to make a major impact, but I certainly wouldn’t expect it by default.
Looks like a motion detect urinal and motion detect sink as well, but damn if they’re not going to make you push a button to get a drink of water…
“I have only seen a motion-activated towel dispenser once in my life.”
I’m younger than you, but I’ve seen a few. And motion-activated blowers, and motion-activated sinks, and motion-activated flushes, too.
What I haven’t seen, but somebody needs to invent, is motion activated floor mopping. Because some menfolk can’t aim, and refuse to admit it and take a seat, and I always seem to come along after they’ve done their business.
My family did a lot of travelling by camper when I was young. In every rest stop the air dryers had a set of instructions (“1. Push button, 2. hold hands under air, 3. Dryer will stop automatically”). And on every single one of them there was a final hand-added instruction: “Wipe hands on pants.”
Then how did you even recognize it as a towel dispenser? I guess if you didn’t realize it was a motion sensor towel dispenser I’d expect “What the hell is he doing with his hands” rather than “what did he expect” as a comment.
(Where can I move to where I can go the rest of my life seeing them only once. It’s seems about 40% to half of the public restrooms have them.)
“In real life, there is usually some sort of manual override though.”
Now, *THAT* I have never seen.
“I have only seen a motion-activated towel dispenser once in my life.”
They had them at Megacorp the past several years that I worked there. Last year,the local hockey arena got the same model.
Brian D @3 got it. The problem I run into is that different brands put the sensor in different places, so you wind up waving in front, then underneath, then desperately along the sides, top, then front again, before giving up. I have rarely seen a manual backup.
As for the air dryers, I like the instructions with pictures. 1) picture of a hand, finger extended, pushing a button. “Push button”. 2) picture of hands under some red wavy lines , to which someone has added “Receive bacon.”
“Now, *THAT* I have never seen.”
Really? I’ve seen a bunch around here (Chicago) where it automatically dispenses, but there is also a little cog-wheel thing on the side that can turn to unclog things or get a sheet manually.
Most air blowers that I encounter only blow hot air in the summer time. Otherwise it is always cold air, no matter how many people used it ahead of you. (Back when I was a kid, they did have heaters, you could even see them get red.) I have seen sensor towel dispensers with a manual wheel to turn. I have never seen any way to get the water to come out of a sensor faucet if the sensor does not work.
“I have never seen any way to get the water to come out of a sensor faucet if the sensor does not work.”
A big enough blunt object should do the trick, unless the faucets in the ladies’ are different from the gents’.
The worst related idea I’ve ever seen was in a Boston museum 20 years ago: a motion sensor water fountain. Basically, when you put your face close enough the where the water comes out, it activates and invariably hits you in the face.
Presumably seemed like a god idea at the time…
“Manual override”: either a wheel on the side you turn, or a level/projection on the bottom you push. Manufacturers don’t go out of their way to make these obvious.
On topic, I’ve seen lots of different kinds of automatic towel dispensers and they have lots of different places to wave. Some have manual overrides, some don’t (at least that I’ve seen). Kilby, it never occurred to me that they could be based on infrared heat sensing instead of just motion. I’ll have to try that next time I find a stubborn one without an override.
Re: James Pollock, July 16, 2018 at 3:15 pm You (nearly) hit on one of my pet peeves. Floor mopping isn’t my issue, though that is pretty gross. For me it’s the inconsiderate women who are so germ paranoid that they won’t sit on the seat but instead hover over it, making a mess, and then don’t bother to clean the seat. If they would just lift the seat like a man (since they aren’t using it anyway) and then put it back down when they are done, the world would be a much nicer place.
“Presumably seemed like a god idea at the time…”
Let there be water! And lo, there was…
Wendy, do they not have butt-gasket dispensers in the ladies’? If they bother to put them in the gents’ I’d expect them in the ladies’. Although, I suppose they might be more likely to be empty…
They do in many places, but they are often empty, or people just don’t bother. And when they do bother, they don’t always make sure the paper actually flushes down, which leaves a different kind of mess. But either way, those don’t help after a “hoverer”, since they are just paper. Which is why I wish those ladies would just lift the seat (maybe using some TP so they don’t have to actually touch the seat) before they go. Some places even have flushable wet wipes, or hand sanitizer to put on some TP to wipe the seat, but that’s pretty rare.
I was in a ladies room at Colonial Williamsburg one year (well, I have been in them more than once, but this one time…) and there was a woman and her daughter trying to use the sink. Apparently they were from the UK and were totally baffled by the variety of the different methods for turning on the water in sinks.
In addition to all of the other problems with the automatic sinks – either the water comes out scalding hot or it comes out cold – generally the latter seems to be one that has not been used a lot and the water in the line has gotten cold. Even when it comes out warm at a temperature it should come out, sometimes one needs a different temperature of water – for example – it is hot out, one’s fingers have swollen and if one does not get their wedding band off quickly by using cold water on one’s finger – one might lose the finger (yes, has happened to me) or one has smashed a finger in a door and needs to get cold water running on it quickly to aleve the pain.
For regular hand sanitation I carry a very small bottle of hand sanitizer in my pocket. I don’t have to worry about the water or drying my hand – or an allergy to the soap. Robert thought this was a stupid idea at first, now I am asked “Can I have some of your sanitizer?” and during the recent flu season he started carrying one also.
@ Wendy – Most motion detectors are simple infrared sensors. All they look for is a (sudden) change in the ambient infrared signature. If they used visible light, they would not work in the dark. The advantage of using IR is that almost all of the relevant moving “objects” (people/animals) comprise a built-in source of illumination.
P.S. The trick I described is fine for towel dispensers (the sensor usually points horizontally forward), but is impractical for hand dryers (the sensor points down to the floor), and would be suicidal for a balky automatic sink faucet.
Meryl, I have to admit I’m kind of disappointed Colonial Williamsburg doesn’t have outhouses.
Necessary houses. (As in it is necessary to have them.) They have non usable period (reproduction) ones (no female joke intended) – the Governor’s Palace has multiple hole ones. The bathrooms within the historic area are technically outhouses as they freestanding buildings with modern (some of which are 1930s/1940s in design) facilities in them. I actually had the discussion with the woman outside of the historic area in the Colonial Williamsburg Visitors Center.
There is also an outside reproduction bath house at the Governor’s Palace, not a common thing. If one goes to different period restorations one will know that necessary houses are much better than what was used at Plimouth Plantation – bucket and chuck it.
And in closing – when I was in maybe 7th grade I went to a Girl Scout camp for 2 weeks. It was not what was I expected in general so my parents received daily written letters begging them to come and take me home (and my kid sister received letters telling her to tell my parents to come and take and take me home). One thing I had not expected was a 3 hole outhouse (and as the youngest girls, we had the most advanced facilities – our outdoor showers had wooden sides on them – I hate to think what the older girls had) and I was in the “patrol” that got to clean the outhouse 3 times a week instead of twice. I was not “a happy camper”.