ENGLISH-PHILOSOPHY BUILDING—In a barely-used men’s room on the third floor of the English Philosophy Building Monday, a student came across a hand dryer that has somehow gone its entire fifteen-year life without being vandalized.
Phil Stansbury, 22, an English major, washed his hands Monday morning and then happened upon what will undoubtedly be considered a modern day anomaly.
“It was amazing,” Stansbury told The Iowa Iowan Monday evening. “It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.” Stansbury estimates that he has been using bathroom hand dryers since middle school.
Specialists hypothesize that the hand dryer, manufactured in 1996 by World Dryer Corporation of Berkeley, Illionois, had never been used before Stansbury used it Monday. “That’s our only guess,” World Dryer Investigative Specialist Randy Darling told The Iowa Iowan in a phone interview. “Nothing else adds up.”
The hand dryer was immediately removed from the restroom and sent to World Dryer via preservative packaging. Darling and his team of experts rigorously tested the hand dryer for traces of “Press button, receive bacon,” “Push butt, rub hans gently under arm hair,” “Step 4: wipe hands on pants,” “This hand dryer helps keep shrooms free of owl waste,” and the alteration of the illustration of a finger pressing the button to appear as if the finger is entering someone’s anus. All results were returned negative.
The University has not yet disclosed whether the rare artifact will be preserved in the Main Library’s Special Collections or sold.
