Paper Towel Fiasco

While waiting for my flight out of Jacksonville, I decided to use the rest room.  What should have been mundane turned to hilarious, when I attempted to get a paper towel to dry my hands.  I waved my hand in front of the sensor.  The towel came out, and I ripped it off.  But, the towel dispenser did NOT stop.  Another paper towel appeared and then another.  I ripped off about 4 towels, before I began to giggle.  The dispenser kept spitting them out. 

A young lady washing her hands at an adjacent sink looked over and laughed.  I said, “Would you like a paper towel,” and handed her one.  I could not keep up with all the towels spewing out of the machine.  I said, “I feel like Lucille Ball at the chocolate factory.”  The young woman obviously knew what I meant, because she nodded and laughed harder.

Realizing I couldn’t keep up with this, I arranged the towels so that they started to fan-fold on the surface of the counter under the dispenser.  I stood back and tried to figure this out.  No attendant was in sight.  I waved my hand in front of the sensor again…no luck, the towels kept coming.  I hit the dispenser on the right.  The towels kept coming.  I hit the dispenser on the left.  The towels kept coming.  I stood back and laughed some more.

A well-dressed and sophisticated lady came out of a stall and with a stern expression asked me if I had ripped a towel off.  She apparently thought I was an idiot.  She ripped one off, messing up my fanfold arrangement.  The towels kept coming.  I reconstructed the fanfold.

A no-nonsense lady came out of a stall.  The young lady and I were still giggling.  The sophisticated lady was still scowling.  The no-nonsense lady strode over and wiped off the glass that covers the sensor, reasoning that if something was on it, the machine might be thinking a hand was waving.  The towels kept coming.

I started to suspect this might be a Candid Camera trick, and that someone was going to pop out and tell us we had been caught.  But, no one emerged with that information. 

When I left the rest room, the machine was still whirring.  The towels were still fan-folding.  I was still laughing.