By Alex Perlin

Before I begin, I think it is important for me to introduce myself a little bit—this is for a few reasons. First of all, it’s polite. Secondly, I think you can better understand someone’s writing if you understand them better as a person. Finally, it explains the bathrooms I talk about, and which I am most familiar with.

I am a senior political science major and history minor. Therefore, I have lived off campus for the past two years, and primarily occupy the buildings of Carnegie and Old Main. My freshman year, I lived in Turck, and sophomore year, I lived in Wallace. As a result of this, I know these buildings’ facilities better than the others. Also, the bulk of the bathrooms discussed below are so-called “men’s rooms.” In my 4 years here, I have chosen to follow the gender binary imposed by Macalester, and am therefore only well-versed in men’s rooms and the occasional unisex room around campus.

The Mac Weekly does not have enough space for me to review every single bathroom on campus, so I will keep it to my favorites, and some general observations. Also, depending on where the bathroom is, it serves a very different purpose for me.
I will start with what is, hands-down, my favorite bathroom on campus: the handicap accessible bathroom in the Wallace basement. It is fucking beautiful. Proof that God exists. The bathroom is luxuriously large (it is even equipped with a shower!) and it has amazing lighting, which leads to easy reading. This is the only bathroom on campus that makes me actually want to contract some stomach bug, so I have to spend more time there.

Next up, the entire campus center wins an award for having three outstanding bathrooms. That’s right, three. Everyone knows the upstairs and downstairs, but there is also a well hidden handicap accessible bathroom in the campus center. This one is pretty nice, but the lock is unconvincing, so during your “stay” there, you might constantly feel an unwanted intruder. The handicap accessible stall in the downstairs of the campus center is also fantastic, as it provides a small sanctuary from the rest of the bathroom. It features its own sink and has plenty of room to put your stuff down, take your coat off, and enjoy your time there. Most importantly, the two main campus center bathrooms are great spots to enjoy a trip to the john with a friend. Each has two stalls, and if you and a friend both find nature calling, feel free to have a conference call! Finally, the urinals downstairs in the campus center are great — they are large, plus there are urinal guards, which provide a little insurance against a fellow pee-er’s errant streams.

Beyond these main bathrooms, the rest of campus provides adequate facilities. The dorm bathrooms all are pretty similar to each other, except for the fact that Bigelow bathrooms are the least inviting places on earth. Also, outside of Turck and Wallace, I only ever frequent the other dorm bathrooms when drunk, so, much like other standards when drunk, the bathroom standards drop way down. Dupre has a few interesting bathrooms, namely the first floor and basement. As most of my time in Dupre is during Fresh Concepts’ 24 hours of improv, these are both really good places for drinking with a few friends when you need to drink in secret.

The worst bathrooms on campus are the library. This is for a few reasons. First of all, they use hand-dryers. In a place where students print hundreds of articles a day that they will never read, I do not understand how our school can care so much about wasting paper. Paper towels are needed for a satisfying bathroom trip. Also, each bathroom is equipped with only one stall, and when people are spending so much time in one building, you need more than that. The one good thing about the library is that there is ample reading material all over the place, like our wonderful periodical section.

Briefly, I will run through the academic buildings, and my main impressions of their restrooms. Carnegie: There is no bathroom on the second floor, which houses my major. What the fuck? Old Main: The bathroom is always really wet. I don’t understand it, but there’s water everywhere. Humanities: These urinals look like a rare antique find from the ’40s about how people use to piss before personal space was invented. Olin Rice: I have drunken about three cases of beer in the Olin Rice bathrooms in my time at Macalester. I don’t really use them for their intended purpose. Finally, the arts and music buildings: these bathrooms are calibrated for people who are roughly 5’1″. I can see over the stalls, and have to pull a Billy Madison like crouch when pissing.

I am truly sorry if I have not given enough time to your favorite bathroom, but I thought it best to also give an accurate snapshot of which pipes I have used the most while here.