Like most humans on the planet Earth, I pee every single day. Unlike most American men, I cannot stand up while doing it. This would not be much of an inconvenience, but unfortunately for me, most men’s bathrooms only have one stall.
The advent of the urinal means that men’s bathrooms are able to save space by having a row of several urinals rather than the same number of stalls. Generally, when I enter the restroom there is at least one free urinal, but this is of no use to me unless I do something really undignified.
Every time there is someone in the stall of a men’s restroom, they are in there for what seems like hours. One would assume this is due to the nature of the business, but based on the sounds I’ve heard coming from within, plenty of guys use the stall as a place to hide while they watch their sportsball game on their phone. If someone is doing this, I just have to wait there and mope while letting everyone else go ahead of me to the urinal.
Speaking of using the bathroom for its intended purpose, one week I tried to use the second-floor men’s bathroom on two different days in a row, and BOTH TIMES the same guy was vaping in there. There was also someone in the stall, so I had to wait in his cloud of fruit punch smell. I’m not going to rat the guy out—it’s not that I don’t want to, I just have no idea who he is. I did not think I would have to tell people this, but the bathroom is not your own personal hookah bar. Putting aside the nonsmoking campus thing for a minute, at least take it outside.
As per the Americans with Disabilities Act, at least one stall in a multi-user restroom must be wheelchair accessible. In multi-user men’s restrooms with multiple urinals but only one stall, this means the accessible stall is the only one there is. Drew has its issues with accessibility (some of which are outlined in Emma Joyce’s (‘28) Nov. 22, 2024 article Accessibility on Campus Sucks), and putting wheelchair users in direct competition with anyone else who needs or wants to use the stall cannot be especially helpful.
Not every restroom on campus suffers from the problems above. But somehow, all of the ones I use are the ones that do. Honestly, half the time I have to give up and use the women’s. I would strongly prefer if more stalls were available so I could stop waiting hours upon hours to pee. The people in charge of building bathrooms need to get it together, because I cannot condone this kind of behavior.
Is there a complaint you’ve been holding in (like how I have to hold it every time I try to use the bathroom)? Send it to me at oarnold@drew.edu and I’ll eviscerate it live on camera.
Ollie Arnold is a senior majoring in mathematics and minoring in computer science.
Featured image courtesy of Pexels.com.
