Privacy, comfort, mirror placement, toilet paper quality and overall ambiance are usually the most important factors when it comes to creating the ideal bathroom. The folks who designed the bathrooms in the basement of the Campus Center had none of these factors in mind, yet there is no bathroom on campus closer to the hearts of the Flat Hat staff.
Affectionately known as “the murder bathroom,” the Campus Center basement bathrooms meet none of the criteria one might expect for a well-loved bathroom, but this unlikely favorite is the only one available during the long Monday nights spent laying out the paper.
The women’s restroom is done in a pale green tile and the men’s in light gray. Both appear to be portals into another time — or perhaps another dimension? They are the sort of liminal spaces that make you incredibly uneasy for no particular reason. In order to reach the toilets, you have to round a corner, which should be normal but is somehow incredibly frightening, especially if you’re one of four people in the building at 1:00 a.m. In the entrance to the men’s room is the sinks, meaning you must wash your hands with your back to the entrance. The entrance to the women’s room is an inexplicable hallway with mirrors in which you can only see yourself from the chest up, and the racks are too high to hoist your backpack onto and too widely spaced to put your phone on. There are no mirrors above the sinks, as there are in most bathrooms. Instead, you must use the toilet in a stall with walls that are far too short, wash your hands at a sink that seems just a bit too low and then try to use the mirrors that are mounted too high up on your way out.
Despite all this discomfort, we all have a begrudging affection for this bathroom. The pale green walls and awkwardly high mirrors aren’t just perfect for delirious Monday night selfies; Rocket did a shoot in there for last year’s spring issue, which is definitive proof that these bathrooms are the coolest on campus. Even though they look like an abandoned horror movie set, we must use these bathrooms, so we have learned to love them.
Next time you’re in the Campus Center, follow the dim fluorescent lights past the Little Theater, past the Publication Lab and pay a visit to the Flat Hat staff’s favorite bathroom on campus. Just make sure you come by before midnight and hope that you don’t have to prop open the door and turn on the lights yourself, unless of course you’re up for horror movie-worthy tension.