You're gonna break the machine!

[cindybubbles]

I was in the ladies' subway station washroom when I suddenly heard the hand dryer. This is one of the express dryers that is supposed to dry your hands quickly, but is so notoriously loud that its noise scares children and gives them nightmares.

Anyways, no big deal, right? Except that the dryer noise kept on going, and when it stopped, it would start AGAIN! In addition to this, I heard a woman scolding the dryer user, "You're going to break the machine! You can't do that!" But the dryer kept on going.

I automatically assumed the scolder was a mother and that the scoldee was her naughty child, gleefully playing with the dryer. But when I got out of the stall, I was surprised to see ANOTHER WOMAN using the dryer to dry a pair of men's shoes!

Now, these were not her own shoes. I would understand if she was barefoot or only wearing socks, but this wasn't the case. She did, however step aside to let me dry my hands, but once I was done, she went back to drying those shoes.

The other woman kept scolding her and told her that security was coming and that she can't do that (use a public machine to dry shoes)!

Why can't she just dry those shoes at home, I wonder? I hope she isn't being abused at home, which could explain why she has to dry those shoes here.

[Slayer]

Maybe the man she was with got his shoes soaked and needed them dried out. Or they got puked on and she had to rinse them out.

The dryer should be fine. The restrooms at the terminus here are constantly full and the dryers are always in use. They've yet to explode.

Sounds like the woman who kept scolding her couldn't find anything better to complain about.

[csquared]

I would not want to be walking around a subway station restroom in my bare/stocking feet. If I got something on my shoes that needed to be cleaned off immediately, I would prefer to park myself someplace and let someone wearing shoes go into the restroom.

Bitchy lady needs to MYOB.

[cindybubbles]

Shoe-Dryer Lady had on her own shoes. It was a pair of loafers that she was drying out.

I told my mom this story, and she thinks that Shoe-Dryer Lady must be homeless. I was ranting because the noise was so darn annoying!

Come to think of it, I've dried stuff in public washrooms without complaint, like my coat and pants (took off the coat, but kept on the pants). And SDL WAS kind enough to let me use the dryer to dry my hands.

At first I agreed with Bitchy Lady, but now that I think of it, if she wanted to stop SDL, BL should have just notified the public transit staff, and leave SDL alone.

[sms001]

Shoe-Dryer Lady had on her own shoes.

I think that's where slayer and csquared were going, cb. SDL had a male companion somewhere whose shoes needed drying for whatever reason. Rather than walk around in a public restroom in socks or bare feet, he hands them off to SDL and waits? Odd scenario, but plausible. gotta agree, suck here is on BL, not SDL.

[Blue Ginger]

Thought for a second this might have been me, but I was doing this at work and not in a subway station.

Was wearing cute flats to work when it starting bucketing down. By the time I walked the 2 minutes from tube to work, my feet and shoes were soaked. Lucky I had remembered my brolly that day for the rest of me.

Boss Lady sent me straight to the ladies to attempt to dry off. Work had just removed all the paper hand towels (grrrr!) so I had to use the new fancy Dyson hand dryer to try to dry my shoes. 5 minutes later, cute shoes were dry and tissues, swiped from the desk, dried my feet and legs.

The old school hand dryer that just point down are a lot easier in these circumstances. But when it's a weird situation like this, you do what you have to.