Handwashing stories are among the hardy perennials of medical journalism, as handwashing is among the leading exhortations of infectious disease specialists: It’s not done enough, it’s not done correctly. I understand the importance of handwashing — I learned about Ignaz Semmelweis from a children’s TV show back when I was a child — but I can’t help feeling that some of the handwashing messages involve a bit of victim-blaming.

Then along comes Joe Smith, a lawyer and sometime state politician in Oregon. In 2012, he gave a TEDx talk about how to dry your hands after washing them in a public washroom using only one paper towel, even the flimsy recycled kind, thus saving millions of pounds of paper towel a year.

Feel free to watch his 4.5-minute presentation (it’s not particularly entertaining), but the technique is this:

• Shake your hands 12 times after washing.
• Take a piece of paper towel and fold it in half before using.
• Voila! Dry hands.

Smith threatened promised to give another TED talk on how to use one square of toilet paper. I don’t know whether he’s given it yet, — I haven’t been able to find it online. I’ll bet it gives ID doctors the heebie-jeebies, but it put me in mind of the “I don’t have a square to spare” episode of Seinfeld (which is entertaining).