The hand dryer above the ball return

Unlike the hand dryer bolted above a restroom sink, this one answers to no water at all, only the thin film of chalk, rosin, and house-ball grime that accumulates on every finger by the third frame. Mounted on a short post beside the ball return at a height calibrated for adult hands and reachable by exactly no child under ten, it activates on a motion sensor or, on older models, a stainless button worn pale by thumbs. The air that emerges is warm rather than hot, forceful rather than powerful, closer in character to a held sigh than to the industrial blast found in an airport restroom. Bowlers hover their fingers over the vent between frames less for hygiene than for ritual, a small pause built into a game that otherwise has none, comparable in function though not in dignity to blowing on dice before a throw. Some machines hum faintly even when idle, a tone not unlike hold music if hold music had given up on melody entirely and settled for a single unbroken note. It does not remove oil already absorbed into a glove or a wrist guard, and it does nothing at all for a ball already thrown. Ten seconds of warm air, sometimes fifteen, then it stops on its own, whether or not the hand underneath it is dry.

H. G. Plimsoll