What started as a recurring joke has rapidly become an increasingly comprehensive investigation: I like to review the various bathrooms on [––]’s campus. Those close to me are well aware of the proceedings, but as for all others, it is high time to get educated. I present to you all: the best and worst of [––]’s restrooms. To my small bladdered and IBS laden peers, you are welcome.

1. The [––] Lobby Restroom: 6/10

Right off the front entrance of [––] dorm, there is a single-stall unisex bathroom. Though it is not particularly nice nor aromatically pleasing, the [––] Lobby Restroom is an institution. As any [––] survivor may tell you, it plays a crucial role in one’s indoctrination into college life. Affectionately known as “the poop room,” this bathroom is the only public single-stall restroom in the entire dorm building. As such, one whose bowels are not yet adjusted to dorm life may enjoy the freedom to shit in peace. However, with great convenience comes great shame: there is no non-suspect reason to enter that room. One goes there for either pooping or crying– or perhaps both. User beware: if you merely need to take a dump, don’t get in the way of bright-eyed eighteen-year-olds whom, freshly away from home, stuffed into a forced triple, and devoid of privacy for the first time in their lives, need that locked-door sanctuary to have a good cry. The more I reflect upon it, the more I note that the [––] lobby restroom is an artifact in itself: undoubtedly those walls have borne witness to everything from cafeteria taquito night attacks to tearful over-the-phone break-ups with high school sweethearts. The [––] Lobby Restroom deserves a six out of ten because though the room itself is nothing to speak of, its importance cannot be understated.

This bathroom plays a similar role to the [––] poop room. The room itself is quite nice: clean, large, easy on the eyes (and nose!). However, its low score is entirely due to the ample and unpredictable foot traffic. The Academic Commons is at its busiest on Sunday afternoons, a time which is somber, sober, and more often than not filled with regret. Try not to run into last night’s hook-up as you make your way over there to puke up the sugar-laden cafeteria muffin which refuses to sit well on last night’s Pink Whitney. The bathroom’s huge, spotless mirror seems like a plus, until you remember that it provides all too much opportunity for body checking, picking at your face, and excessive dissociation on those dreary, sleep-deprived afternoons.

Though I, like all others, prefer to shit in privacy, strangely enough I do not always prefer single stalled bathrooms. In a multi-stall restroom, at least you can observe the lock in place, and if you’re particularly worried about someone busting in, you can reach out a hand or foot and reinforce the stall door. However, in a full-door restroom with invisible locks, one’s safety is in the hands of none other than god. If you’re like me, you will not be able to stop thinking about the imminent possibility of one of life’s great horrors: hearing the doorknob jiggle while you’re on the can. As you scramble to find an appropriate way to express “for the love of all that is good and holy do NOT come in,” you may be subject to childhood flashbacks of being walked in on while sitting on a foot-tall, kindergarten-classroom-adjacent toilet. If these are the cards your six-year-old self was dealt, thou shalt never poop in peace once more. A single stall restroom at best makes for an anxious BM and at worst leads to constipation.

All in all, you’d be hard pressed to find someone with particularly good, or even neutral experiences regarding the Academic Commons Lobby Restroom. I rate it four out of ten.

3. The [––] Hall Lobby Restroom: 8/10

I have not much to say about this bathroom other than that it checks a lot of my boxes: it’s in a mostly private area, it’s clean and nice. This was a late discovery– I did not know its existence until three years into college, when I had a class in that building and learned that not only did [––] have classrooms, but also had an above average restroom. You may get lost trying to find it, but if you do happen upon the [––] Hall Lobby Restroom, you’d be pleased to see it worthy of an eight out of ten.

I haven’t had a class in the chem building since first year gen-ed’s, but from what little I remember, the chem building restrooms are a bit horrifying. If you’re not murdered by a ghost, you may pass out from chemical inhalation. It’s safe to say that, coming in at a two out of ten, you’d be better off pissing into a spare beaker.

On the third floor of the library, there’s two private bathrooms that both have a full door that locks, and then a single stall within that room that also locks. Providing the best of both worlds in terms of privacy and visible security, these bathrooms rank high in my books. Unfortunately, it seems that I’m not the only one who’s caught on to the trick– boy do those bathrooms smell like shit. And on your way to these two private rooms, you might have to walk by a class in session, in which case it feels bleedingly obvious where exactly you are headed, and what exact duty (hah) you are about to perform. 

Additionally, there is absolutely no ventilation in those rooms; in fact, upon entering one of those restrooms, one recalls distant memories of being locked in a dungeon in a past life. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that a student got trapped in one of these rooms over winter break, only for their corpse to be found on opening day of spring semester. If you’re pulling a last-ditch, I-can’t-fail-this-class, finals-week-all-nighter and have to wander down the dark, dilapidated hallway to get to these bathrooms, just be sure to tell someone where you're headed, lest you never return.

There’s no wifi in those rooms either, so you are forced to stare at the wall and contemplate the disgusting, oppressive reality of the human condition– of our fleshy, flaccid frames that ceaselessly gobble resources and grind them into foul excrement– of our bodies that waste, waste, waste.

Ultimately ranking a seven out of ten, these bathrooms are wonderfully private yet woefully pungent.

The [––] Annex Restroom: 1/10

The [––] Annex Restroom was my enemy for the year that I was forced to live in the poorly constructed afterthought of [––] dorm. Why are the toilets only a foot off the ground? Are they trying to give me kindergarten flashbacks? Don’t get me started on the stall with the toilet that is, I kid you not, falling off of the wall. The upper tank hangs about four inches forward off the back wall, threatening to topple over at any given moment. One is forced to consider: will I be the straw that breaks the camel’s back? Am I willing to risk a mid-shit catastrophe, wherein I may or may not be blasted by water from a broken pipe? 

The Student Center Restroom: 10/10

I have saved the best for last; the Student Center Restroom gets a perfect ten out of ten. It is pleasant, pretty, and seldom enough visited such that it feels private. I am highly tempted to exclude this restroom from my ranking and keep it as my very own hidden gem, but, alas, I will do the right thing and share this gift with the world. Happy shitting, my friends.