Let’s talk. Bathrooms are a necessity. If you gotta go, you gotta go. It’s a natural part of the human existence. But, I shouldn’t have to dread using the school bathroom every day. My bathroom time should be my five minute escape from class, but it’s turned into my two minute rush of trying to get out as fast as I can. Don’t get me wrong, I love school, but sometimes, I just need a little break, specifically, a potty break.

First of all, some of our precious bathrooms are closed, specifically, the theater bathroom;  I haven’t been there in a year. Yeah, I know, there’s construction, and it’s not especially easy to get to the theater hallway these days and the bathroom is actually locked. But, what about the art, business, and Spanish classes that are in the basement? Are they supposed to take the ten minute trek from the basement to the main hallway bathroom? It’s okay to miss a little bit of class, but ten minutes, now that’s a lot. And what about when I’m eating lunch? Lunch is already my free time, I don’t want to waste those valuable twenty minutes by walking all the way down to the main hallway bathroom. And, the theater hallway was my favorite bathroom. It was the cleanest, and definitely provided the best bathroom experience.

Now, we are able to use the North building bathroom, the main hallway bathroom, and the Haben bathroom; however, I am never in the North building, thus why would I go all the way up there? I like to get my steps in, but that is too far. As for the Haben, why would I go all the way down there? Sure if I have wellness, but not if I am trying to get to math class after religion. How am I supposed to go to those bathrooms in passing time? And if I want to go during class, no teacher is going to let me go that far and waste all of my learning time. Again, five minutes is okay, ten is definitely not.

The main hallway bathroom is now, pretty much, my only option. Half of the sinks don’t work; there is usually water everywhere, and half of the stalls are either disgusting or somehow broken. There’s usually no soap and no paper towels, and that hand drying machine is terrifying. I don’t even want to talk about the smell. I am so grateful to maintenance for dealing with our nasty bathrooms. They are saints. But, people, come on. If we want to have nice things, we need to treat them nicely. No one wants to use an unpleasant bathroom. That is not fun for anyone. Bathroom time is precious. Let’s treat it like that.