In the past, I used to expect a quick trip when I went to the bathroom. Now, however, I have come to anticipate more fanfare in my trips. I actually encounter a sense of dread when I have to use the bathroom because of a large looming question: what am I going to see this time?
- One time, I even found lovely words on the bathroom stall for me to read. It read “BBIS (Beautiful Boys in School)”, and the one entrant under it was none other than my boyfriend Mark Kovalenko. Other times, they prey on people’s downfall with writing edging closer to hatred.
- There is a culture at Liberty where the students feel at home in the bathroom. They use the sinks as their living room and the stalls as their bedroom. It even gets to the point where students are forced to use two stalls because the others are taken by homesick students.
- I am a big supporter of couples and I love seeing them around the school, but maybe they should stay in the hallways. PDA (Public Display of Affection) is already a big problem in schools, but it’s even worse in the dreary comfort of the bathrooms. I don’t take a trip to the bathroom to see you guys make out.
- You would think the list of complaints would end there, but there are non-student-caused complaints. For example, the random shortages of toilet paper refills in the bathroom, or the lack of feminine products, but these are just a small part of the larger problem.
- Friend groups that lounge in the bathroom often look at you weirdly when you’re using it as if you’ve intruded their house, but no! I am just trying to feel relief but sometimes the relief is short-lived and disturbed by someone knocking on the stall doors trying to find which one their friend is in.
- Bathroom hogging. I look at all of the stalls but they’re dirty and the ones that I could use have students camping in them waiting for that period to be over. This then leaves you in a predicament. Do you tell a teacher that there are no stalls available and risk the social lashback because you’ve “snitched”? Or, do you go to another bathroom hoping to find somewhat clean, empty stalls?
I keep hoping the bathroom situation will improve because of the rules the school has enforced, but it just doesn’t. It has gotten worse over time. At first, it was someone waiting for you in the stalls, but now it’s something waiting for you in the stalls: an unflushed poop. You would think that as high schoolers we would know how to flush the toilet so that the next person doesn’t have to receive an unpleasant surprise.
