There is a definite stereotypical “guy” persona. He doesn’t care about much, certainly not his’s appearance, and never would he ever care about cleanliness. Nonetheless, as many stereotypes turn out to be, this one is just plain wrong. Guys might want to portray some sort of careless attitude, but a lot of times careless attitudes require careful preparations. So when guys scoff at the absence of mirrors and paper towels as nothing important, it definitely isn’t true.

Since I came to Edina High School, I have heard multiple rumors of the majestic women’s bathroom, and their wonderful full length mirrors. Full length mirrors are infinitely more helpful than a nonexistent mirror. Except for the office bathroom, none of the boy’s bathrooms have mirrors. Tragically, this makes taking a “flow check” next to impossible.

On top of that, after several unfortunate turn of events this year, the quality of the bathrooms has sunken to a new low. First of all, the third floor boy’s bathroom was locked for months. This left EHS’s male population with only the bathroom by the office and the third floor bathroom, which are out of the way for the majority of classes. Conveniently after this happened, one of the two paper towel dispensers was removed from the third floor bathroom, making the one remaining dispenser run out much faster. Not long after that, the second one was taken out as well.

Also there’s the fact that only one side of the school has bathrooms at all. Or should I say bathrooms that are unlocked? Because the EPAC side has more bathrooms than the other side, they are just always locked. Not that this doesn’t give you a nice workout, walking to the other side of the school every time you want to relieve yourself, but it’s a huge inconvenience.

Most of these bathrooms are locked because of problems with drugs, vandalism, and just the amount of bathrooms that can be maintained. Mr. Nelson, the assistant principal, said, “When there are problems with vandalism, we need to lock it to find ways to monitor it. The bathroom is the place you can’t really put a camera.” Nonetheless, we have to use the bathroom. And it’s nice to do it when you want to, rather than after a long, uncomfortable walk.

The bathroom situation at EHS is nothing to brag about, especially for guys. But happily, the situation has been somewhat remedied. The janitorial staff has not only replaced the second floor paper towel dispenser with a newer model, but a little while ago, opened up the third floor bathroom, in perfect working order.