The Washington Post
CONGRESSIONAL HYGIENE
Only the Strong (And Absorbent) Make It to Hill
Friday, April 6, 2007; Page A19
And you thought the choice between Bounty or Scott towels was complicated.
The office of the Architect of the Capitol, which is responsible for stocking paper towels in bathrooms throughout the Capitol complex, recently released its requirements for paper supplies to potential vendors. The office is seeking a vendor that can supply 640,000 paper towels every two weeks.
But not just any paper towels.
The specifications, written with the detail only your massive federal bureaucracy could provide, spell out eight requirements for towels fit for the Capitol. Among them:
· "C-fold paper towels provided shall have a minimum unfolded width of 10.25 inches, with a permissible variance of plus .25 or minus .50 inches, and maximum length of 14 inches.
"Each towel shall have a minimum area of 130 square inches. The folded width of each towel shall be 3 inches, with a permissible variance of plus .25 or minus .50 inches."
· "The rate of absorption of paper towel material provided shall not be greater than 20 seconds for the absorption of 0.1 milliliter of water on any representative sample of paper towel as submitted."
· "The color of the paper towel shall be white, with a minimum brightness rating of 70 when measured in accordance with the requirements of test method T-452 of the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industries."
· "The minimum thickness of 12 single plies of the paper towel material provided shall be 0.070 inch when measured under an applied pressure of 0.5 psig."
And we won't even get into the "average bursting strength" requirement of the two-ply toilet paper.
-- Lyndsey Layton
I begin to see the argument for smaller government...
"We probably could have saved ourselves, but we were too damned lazy to try very hard... and too damn cheap." - Kurt Vonnegut
"Now if you remember all great paintings have an element of tragedy to them. Uh, for instance if you remember from last week, the unicorn was stuck on the aircraft carrier and couldn't get off. That was very sad. " - Kids in the Hall
Well, the dimensions make sense, if only so that the gummint doesn't have to go out and buy new paper towel dispensers to fit nonstandard paper towels. The brightness level of the color is a little over the top, though....
EZ Board Survivor
"Dreaming isn't good for you unless you do the things it tells you to." -- Three Dog Night (via the GI)
aliantha wrote: The brightness level of the color is a little over the top, though....
No, it's not! We can't have Congressional paper towels that don't match the bathroom decor!
"We probably could have saved ourselves, but we were too damned lazy to try very hard... and too damn cheap." - Kurt Vonnegut
"Now if you remember all great paintings have an element of tragedy to them. Uh, for instance if you remember from last week, the unicorn was stuck on the aircraft carrier and couldn't get off. That was very sad. " - Kids in the Hall
What gets me is the absorbency. . . I cannot believe that they've spent so much time on this! And no. . . I don't want to know about "bursting strength!"
