BATHROOMS. School bathrooms, specifically, are revolting. Granger’s restrooms are no different.

Usually, using a public restroom is already an unpleasant experience, but I’ve found using Granger restrooms is somehow worse. They are often stinky, crowded, or stained in questionable places. Most of the time, it’s all three. Just trying to get into a stall is a difficult task due to how many people crowd the bathrooms during passing time. At lunch, it couldn’t be any worse. People overflow the bathrooms, and at times I’ve found myself walking to a different restroom because there wasn’t space.

The most frustrating thing, though, is that most of those people don’t need to use the bathroom. They’re either in there to smoke, skip, or hang out. I know so many people who’ve become uncomfortable with the idea of using the restrooms at this school. It’s simply because they feel unsafe with the sheer number of people in there.

People become more self-conscious in crowded bathrooms. I have taken multiple friends to the restroom. The multiple eyes that watch you as you walk into the bathroom set nerves off. You’re going to do a very personal thing, something that you wouldn’t want to be shared or have multiple people know and comment on. When so many people are in there at once, it becomes intimidating.

The cleanliness of the bathrooms is another thing. The sinks, the floors, and sometimes even the walls are defiled in some way. More than once I walked into a restroom to find a sink filled with wet paper towels and random pieces of trash. Sometimes, it’s worksheets or candy wrappers, and this usually leads to the sink being clogged full of dirty water.

Imagine trying to wash your hands and coming out to a sink full of trash and dirty water. The floors are usually trashed, again with papers and candy wrappers.

The walls of the bathroom stalls also have graffiti, most of the time, it’s someone’s name or a back-and-forth chat between two people. There are times when people stick pads or other hygienic products to the walls.

Really? It makes you wonder if any of these kids have common sense.

Some people don’t flush, and it’s not because it was clogged or anything. They simply chose not to flush the toilet. The bathrooms are freshly cleaned in the morning, and right after the first period, they look like a TV dive bar restroom. The disgusting state they are brought to in such a short amount of time would be impressive if it weren’t so disgusting.

All in all, the bathrooms here at Granger could use some improvement. To start, regulating who goes in and out of the restrooms. We have monitors, but they don’t really…monitor.  They just see who goes in and don’t do much even when there are so many people in one bathroom.

Another solution could just be bringing awareness to the cleanliness of the bathrooms. We all know they’re disgusting, but it’s not addressed. Maybe pointing out that we should have basic hygiene in the restrooms would remind everyone to keep them clean.

So what did we learn? Lancers could do better in keeping bathrooms clean. And please, just throw away trash in the actual trash cans, the sinks are not the right place for trash.