by Katie Carns
For 90 minutes, a student watches the clock. He leaves English, shoving his way through the crowd to the bathroom. Darn, it’s locked.
Now he makes his way to the Building 12 bathrooms: another locked door. With three minutes left before the tardy bell rings, he races to the Building 13 bathrooms. Rounding the corner of the bathroom, he is overwhelmed by the foul stench, empty paper towel holders and a mile-long line of other students doing a bathroom dance. He isn’t going to relieve himself this time, sad to say. The defeated student bolts to his class in Building 10. Just as he is about to reach the door, the bell rings. He’s tardy.
Not only have I witnessed this tragedy time and time again, but I have also fallen victim to this scenario. It’s easy to think that using the bathroom should always be a basic human right. Experts say healthy adults should use the bathroom five to seven times a day, and students are at school for eight hours of that time.
The real question is this: why are unlocked bathrooms so rare that it seems to a miracle to find open doors? The sad answer is that students have caused the bathroom privilege to become an endangered species.
Vandalism, skipping, smoking and other inappropriate activities have resulted in locked bathrooms and hectic transitions. Most of us aren’t guilty of angering the bathroom gods; however, we are all paying for the mistakes of a few.
The administration reports that vandalism has decreased since the renovation, but I urge students to take pride in the school and treat the bathrooms as they would their bathrooms at home.
To those students who don’t care about the bathrooms, and who obviously have a bladder of steel, please don’t ruin it for the rest of us. Write, “Jill was here!” on your bathroom walls at home.
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