By Abby Rathbun
I drink more water than most fish. This, in turn, requires that I visit the restrooms on campus frequently. And let me tell you, most of the bathrooms on this campus need some serious updating and refreshing.
While I do enjoy the lack of a cardboard roll in the toilet paper, I do not, however, enjoy the frequency in which it runs out. Nothing is worse than running to the bathroom in the middle of class, only to find out that there is no toilet paper in any of the stalls, and attempting to use that little scrap left over. I propose that there be a cabinet for the janitorial staff in each of the bathrooms, full of new rolls of toilet paper.
I would also appreciate that those who use the bathrooms on campus use less of the toilet paper. You don’t need to line the whole seat with paper, nor do you need to wrap your hand 18 times before using it. And you certainly do not need to drape the toilet paper all over the floor of the stall. It soon becomes a wet mess of pulp, which people like me then slide on when trying to exit the stall.
On that same note, you only need one towel to dry you hands—just one. Evaporation will take care of the rest of the excess moisture. I promise.
But beyond the basic restroom etiquette issues, certain bathrooms give me the uh-oh feeling. For example, there are certain men’s restrooms in Bingham Humanities Building that lack dividers between the toilets, not just the urinals. That is beyond gross. I understand the urinal thing and am quite jealous of the fact that men get to stand up while completing their business, but I think it is appalling not to have stalls when it requires males to sit down. I’m okay with talking through the walls while in the bathroom; I do not want everyone to see me. That’s creepy. I hope they do not attempt to sell the metal dividers in the rest of the bathrooms for scrap metal. Raise tuition first, please.
The women’s restrooms are no better. There are no sanitary disposals for feminine products in the stalls on the first floor of Humanities. I would appreciate, and so would the rest of the females, if we could dispose of our products within the stalls, rather than in the general trash can. Furthermore, there is always a line to use the bathroom in most of the buildings, especially the one closest to Einstein Bros. Bagels. More stalls are incredibly necessary. There are only two female stalls in the restroom on the first floor of the Natural Sciences Building. On the other hand, Strickler Hall has 11 stalls in just one restroom on the first floor. It’s completely unnecessary.
The bathrooms on campus, especially in older buildings, tend to be permanently dark and musky. They certainly do not feel safe, especially after dark. I hear the stalls in the Miller Information Technology Center could easily pass as a scene from a horror film. The ones in the library on the old side are dark, dank and dirty.
Several bathrooms are quite nice—the second floor women’s restrooms on the new side of the library, for example. I just wish when I had to visit any of the aforementioned facilities, I didn’t hear the theme from “Halloween” or “Deliverance” playing in my mind.
