LUCK OF THE DRAW

Kimberly-Clark Professional makes a number of handy hygiene products, but their latest offering is sure to give some pause—in more ways than one. The company is marketing the “Kimberly-Clark Professional JRT Electronic Coreless bath tissue dispenser.” It’s what you’d think it is: an automatic toilet-paper-pusher. Pretty handy for those who have to buy and supply toilet tissue, as, according to the company’s release, the device offers “a 20% reduction in the amount of bath tissue used, through controlled dispensing,” and “45% less packaging waste.” But we have our concerns about this last ‘feature’: “A battery life of more than one year.” Unless there’s an Emergency Crank Handle attached, we’d hate to be the poor soul sittin’ there at the one-year-and-one-day mark, as the motor sputters and dies. Then what?