Paper Towel Dispensers, WTF?

The kind of stuff no one wants to think about when opening a recording studio or any f$%ing business. -LC

WARNING: The following post is angry and full of nasty swear words.

So, brave reader, please stay with me as I tell the harrowing tale of Jackpot! Recording Studio’s paper towel dispensers. Yes, an evil so nefarious that one cowers in the shadows hoping to be spared.

Somehow, in 2009 Jackpot! ended up with a pair of Georgia-Pacific paper towel dispensers, henceforth known as PTDs. I believe our illustrious former studio manager, Kendra Lynn, found them on Craigslist, though it’s also possible they came from the bowels of Hell or some dark H.P. Lovecraft dimension beyond our imagination. A PTD seems like an innocuous device, though a visit to any public bathroom reveals that despite technical advances in most other fields, the PTD is still an archaic mechanism that frequently just doesn’t fucking work at least 1/2 the time. Restaurants, bars, truck stops, bowling alleys, coffee shops, theaters, and more seem to always give up and leave a sopping wet roll of paper towels sitting on the back of a toilet (or somewhere else just as gross), or maybe there’s a loose stack of C-fold towels that go flying across the floor as you reach to grab one or two after (hopefully, maybe?) washing your greasy little hands.

First, as seen above, these incredibly stupid rolls come in various sizes. Randyy, our intrepid helper and in-house studio guru, accidentally ordered the way-too-fucking-big white rolls and they don’t fucking fit the fucking dispensers. Luckily, the ding-dong idiots at Amazon let him keep them for free, so he uses them for cleaning around the studio and polishing the lustrous finish of his fine Italian sports car. No, we do not know how he ended up with this car or why he’s so evasive about its origin. That’ll be a post for another time, dear reader. Despite Randyy’s time spent on the race track or whatever he does for fun, he did figure out a way to utilize old roll cores as a way to use just about any paper towel rolls in the future. Amazing, and I think his patent is about to get approved. Hmmm….

So, the littler brown rolls work in the stupid PTDs, and after almost 20 years we (Randyy and Zach) figured out a way to basically fit any roll of paper towels in our dispensers without having to search online for exact roll dimensions or find rolls with the proper stupid little plastic caps that fit on each side in order for these stupid rolls to fit in the dumb PTDs. It’s all very specific, as ass-hat companies like Georgia-Pacific obviously try to create a PTD that ONLY will accept their own stupid, overpriced rolls of scratchy paper towels.

Here’s the PTD in the “kitchenette” of Jackpot! Beige is such a wonderful color and fits in anywhere. How pleasant! I’m glad these are branded as “Ultima” towels, whatever that fucking means. Ultima what? We load them with whatever US Chef’Store or Amazon has on fucking sale this week. Note: There’s a sticker inside these PTDs that says they are the property of Georgia-Pacific. That means some assface sold us something they did not technically own. At all. What a fucking jerk. Thanks a lot.

I’m sorry I don’t have a better photo of the inept stupid little “arms” that hold the roll in place for dispensing. They are made of pseudo-spring steel and frequently stop springing and drop the roll onto the stupid rubber rollers below, thus impeding any forward motion of the paper at the bottom. Wow, what a great design! What fly-by-night technical college did these fools attend? Holy shit, wake the fuck up you junior-grade engineer!

Note the washer stack above where I recently had to basically build a new part from scratch when a stupid piece of plastic broke and the PTD stopped working. Yeah, smart. Put a fucking piece of plastic in a position of stress and hope it works. Good job, Georgia-Pacific! Go back to drafting school and draw pictures of square candy bars in your fucking sleep as you dream about designing bridges that fall into the sea.

At the end of the day, we have many pieces of pro audio gear that have taken far less work. time, stress, thought, energy, and money to keep running than these incredibly stupid, annoying paper towel dispensers. If you are about to open ANY business, think long and hard about maybe just forgetting about the entire prospect of what your dreams are and possibly just going to live in a tree and meditate all day like Rick Rubin instead. You’ll be happier. These devices will frustrate and confuse you to no end, and who the fuck wants a client or co-worker to walk out of the bathroom with wet goddamned fucking hands? Not me. Gross.