Frsruary 1, 2005

THE CADRE ¢ 13

OPINION & COMMENTARY

..And now for something completely different: The Bathroom Edition: Part I

Ryan Gallant and Adam Carragher ,

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in The Cadre in the March 2"4, 2004 edition and has been reprinted for the information of the UPEI community.

So you may be asking yourself, “What the hell are these guys doing writing about bathrooms? Don’t they know that I rely on this column for all my weekly news?” First of all, that is very, very sad. Secondly, this issue should matter to you. Studies show that the average person spends about 7 years in the bathroom over the span of their lifetime. This should astound most readers because a) 7 years is a long time to spend on the can, and b) because I just came up with this figure off the top of my head.

Either way, my good friend Adam Carragher and I have taken time out of our incredibly busy social lives to inspect 35 bathrooms here on campus. These are their stories.

- Our journey begins in the Sports Centre. One glaring finding of our survey was that every bathroom seems to have its own character, specific to the function that it serves. For example, the men’s locker room bathroom practically reeks of testosterone. First of all, it doesn’t have a door, seeming to declare with a great deal of machismo; “Door? I don’t need no damn door.” These washrooms have always freaked me out a bit. Other than the obvious lack of a door, the taps suck, and seem to have no real control over the speed or amount of water that sprays into the sink, often with sporadic rage. Plus there are also always some random 50 year old naked guys roaming around. This bathroom, yes, is odd, but was not bad enough overall

to.make it onto the list of the worst bathrooms on campus.

The bathrooms in the Nursing Faculty were pretty hard to find and did not seem to want to accommodate men very well. Sure, there were two

bathrooms, but only the women’s -

bathroom was designated to a specific gender. The only way guys are able to answer the call of nature in this Faculty is to use a unisex bathroom that is wedged in a corner between a Doritos machine and a photocopier. No wonder men don’t want to become nurses. So unless you like a snack when you’re in

the lavatory, or enjoy photocopying

your-ass once in awhile, these facilities are not for you. In addition, it smelled like a dentists’ office. This bathroom garnered top marks as the hardest to find, and is without a doubt the most sexist bathroom at UPEI.

Dalton Hall has the weirdest mix of bathrooms on earth. The building is

weird enough, with the Rustico wharf

of a wheelchair ramp out front, and the multiple signs on the front door warning you to not smoke and to “Watch out for icicles,’ and to “Try not to kill people

with your allergens.’ The washroom on the top floor has a sign on the door as well. This one warns: “Knock first, then lock the door behind you.” Like it’s part of some crazy bathroom cult. The ground-floor bathroom also exemplifies washroom paranoia. There are at least four signs in this bathroom, warning you to do all sorts of things, from not flushing paper towel down the toilet to getting your regular flu shots. One sign notes: “In effort to curb another outbreak of SARS, may we remind you to get a flu shot, and to wash your hands often.” This should be your first clue that Dalton Hall is NOT a science faculty building. 1) SARS has never reached P.E.I., and any renewed outbreak has been confined to Beijing. 2) You should probably be washing your hands anyway, seeing as this building has a foods lab and 3) Flu shots do not protect you against SARS. They protect you against the flu. Hence the name.

The bathrooms of Main are known for their spacious comfort and modernity. However on the day we conducted our survey, the strong smell

of cannabis was apparent in one of the bathrooms. So this is the Arts building, is it? In the basement bathroom, a

' political debate has been raging on the

walls for years. An anti-pesticide sticker is stuck to the mirror, and one stall has been ravaged with graffiti. One stall user has hailed bodily functions as being “petty bourgeoisie” and orders everyone to “‘stop pissing for the man’”’, while others sing the praises of corporate and capitalist society, often with crudely drawn cartoons. (Viewer Discretion is advised.) Others have ignored the ideological debate and have resorted to writing out passages of biblical scripture. Though a bit out of the way, this bathroom is without a doubt the most entertaining one on campus.

Memorial Hall has some interesting ideas on how to organize a bathroom as well. In this washroom, the urinals are located in their own little room with a swinging door covering about one-third of its entrance. For all you ladies who may unfamiliar with normal urinal placement, this arrangement is highly unorthodox. These urinals are like 2 inches apart, seeming to ignore the ample amount of space presented in this ‘urinal room’. This room and these doors seem to serve no logical purpose. Be it | coincidental or not, Memorial happens to be home to the Faculty of Psychology, and this messed up bathroom concept serves no other purpose than to screw with one’s mind. That place is really frigging weird.

Stay tuned next week to find out the absolute worst bathrooms here on campus.

Have a good one!

ryangallant(@hotmail.com