From the Newsstands: This story appeared in The Eagle's December 2023 print edition. You can find the digital version here.
The following piece is satire and should not be misconstrued for actual reporting. Any resemblance to a student, staff or faculty member is coincidental.
Unfortunately, I’ll have to dance around a word. Post-digestion. Brown secretion. The great equalizer. It’s potty time! Among college’s key downsides, don’t you miss the comfort of not having to do it in a public restroom all the time? Even for those living in private suites, the walls are thin and people can smell. But life is nothing without compromises; here are the most secure places to doo-doo on campus.
Before we start, here are some metrics: each location is ranked by accessibility, privacy, cleanliness and how inconspicuous it is.
1. Anderson/Centennial Hall lobby
- Good on them for keeping up with symmetry and having two private bathrooms on each side of the elevators. This is number one due to pristine maintenance, luxurious size and good lighting to check yourself out in the giant mirror. Powerful toilets and lack of acoustics work hard to hide your orangnistank. If you’re too shy to luke duke in your dorm bathroom, just walk downstairs.
2. School of International Service basement by the Library wing
- Ask not what you can do for gender neutrality, but what gender neutrality can do for you. The positives are overwhelming: A working accessibility button, a changing table for babies, a nice smell and it’s barred behind a literal set of closed doors. Don’t worry, they’re usually unlocked, but that’s not obvious, which means that no one will bother going through them. This would have been number one if the entire building wasn’t locked during the evening. You’re strolling through easy halls, baby!
3. Kerwin Hall second floor
- Another working accessibility button! You’ll soon find that this location falls off for the rest of the list. As clean as your standards for good public restrooms could be. This is not to be mistaken with the near-identical bathroom on the third floor, but why walk up 50 steps of stairs when you can just take 25? Keep it simple, silly!
4. Mary Graydon Center first floor, by the entrance to Terrace Dining Room
- The door has an accessibility button, and hopefully, someone will put money in to make sure it doesn’t weirdly start and stop. Anyway! So long as you don’t go during a busy meal rush, no one will know that you had to crank a yam.
5. Katzen Arts Center first floor
- It’s roomy, it’s kinda clean, but best of all, trying to find it takes an entire journey. That means no one would see you walk in and out. Obviously, to the five art and music majors at American University, it’s easy to find, but because of the low population here, there’s no line in the evenings! It’s all about the timing. If you’re really into dim lighting and not being able to see yourself in the mirror then this bathroom should skyrocket to number one.
6. Bender Library first floor
- This is actually a bit more conspicuous than Katzen, but it is the only available spot to drop some brownies in the pool on the Library’s first floor. It’s also gone downhill in terms of maintenance — it’s stanky in there. This would have gotten a higher ranking from accessible buttons, but as writing, they don’t work anymore. So all you have is a weird heavy machine door that leads to a slightly dirty bathroom. Make sure you squat.
Shy poopers, this one’s for YOU. While you should never be ashamed to Betty Crocker Brownie Delight, consider this step one in your journey to be unashamed, in both comfort and style.
Jasmine Shi is a sophomore in the School of Communication and a Satire Columnist at The Eagle.
This article was edited by India Siecke, Alexis Bernstein and Abigail Pritchard. Copy editing done by Isabelle Kravis and Luna Jinks.
