Dear 170 hall (and other halls) bathroom occupants-

Speaking for the majority of students, we are tired of having to face the repercussions of your actions. We are tired of having to take an extraneous amount of time out of our days to play the bathroom game. On behalf of the student body, we express our genuine grievances as well as concern for you all.

Ordinarily, one would expect bathrooms to be used for the handling of business for two bodily functions, but over the course of the year it has been utilized as the handling of now, if you will, number three: Smoking.

This article could act as the role of D.A.R.E (the teenage drug prevention program, not just the cute little brand on Forever 21 T-shirts) and give you facts and statistics to why you shouldn’t be smoking in the bathroom at school at such a young age, but the same people that continuously shut down our bathrooms simply do not have a care in the world of their actions will continue to go on with their addictions.

It is a universal Klein Oak student experience to spend 5-10 minutes of the day in searching of a bathroom as more than half of the bathrooms in the school are locked at alternating times by administration in order to prevent the same “Bathroom Bunch” from well, bunching in. While, if you strike gold and find an opened bathroom, you cannot walk into it without the smell of, Blueberry Ice, Melon Kiwi Ice, or other substances.

Let us break down a normal trip to the bathroom.

First, the journey begins the hunt with the awkward hand raise or walk to ask the teacher to use the bathroom. Then, when the approval comes, it is then the long trek from hall to hall playing the game of Locked or Unlocked. In the off chance that there is an unlocked bathroom, when running into the Bathroom Bunch it is almost like we are the deer surrounded by 8-9 headlights passing around a pastel colored nicotine filled stick.

When becoming the deer, the interactions with the headlights often can go in a verbal or nonverbal way.

1) Someone, the assumed group leader, will ask if you are either going to snitch or if you would like to partake. Both questions asked typically are responded to with a sweet, short, and passive response of no. Referring back to being the deer in headlights, the deer (the student who is just seeking to answer nature’s call) is caught off guard and hurries off into the bathroom stall, to handle business with the looming feeling that they are the ones who interuppted something.

2) In this scenario, no words are exchanged, just the silent agreement that both parties will leave each other to tend to their business and the reason as to why they are both found in the bathroom at this particular time. Usually, this scenario occurs during class, not when the hallway is crowded and clustered.

We all are displeased with the locked bathroom situation, however, at some point we have to accept the fact that this situation is not even in the full control of our administration. There’s not an exact way admin can fix an issue when it comes from people who continuously prove to defy the rules as is.

Administration has truly done all they could to prevent the issue and it is quite unfortunate that the rest of the student body that does what they are supposed to do has to take the downfalls of their peers. We applaud our administration for all the hardwork they put in to control this crazy student body. However, it prevails that rules will be made and there will always be people to break them.

Nobody likes walking into the restroom to find a group of kids gathered on the floor as though they are in some sort of meeting. Not only is it gross, but that group of kids is blocking the way for everyone else to get through. Plus, it always feels like the person walking in is in the wrong for disrupting something even though they are using the restroom the way it was intended to be used.

In all, we are tired. We all are tired of having to face the consequences of people who cannot admit that they obviously have a problem. It’s baffling that these same students have zero shame in exploiting their substance addiction to their fellow classmates at the ripe ages of 14-18. The lungs of these same people look the same as someone who has lived 8 full decades. So, we mean this out of care for you all and for the sake of our bathrooms.