By Matthew Barton

The urinal? Off the wall. The sink? Broken. Want soap? Try Germ-X instead. This is the experience of those who want to use the men’s restroom in the downstairs G hall. The bathroom is not fully functioning, and many students in performing arts find themselves stuck in a dilemma whenever they are in need of it.

Senior Zach Godsey said he remembers when the restroom was fully operational and not just the butt of restroom jokes.

“The restroom was fine three years ago, but it got destroyed more and more each year,” Godsey said. “Now there is no urinal and no functional sink. I don’t think it’s truly a restroom if the sink is replaced with an empty bottle of hand sanitizer.”

The sink is not the only issue in the restroom. The entire urinal is gone, with pipes and rags sticking out from where the urinal used to be. As a result, students say restroom wait-time has become an issue.

“The dysfunctional bathroom means that we either have to sprint to class after we wait in line for a while or use a pass on our agenda,” Secrest said. “The school should definitely add a urinal back in and fix our sink because it is wasting students’ time. We can’t run to the bathroom on the opposite side and still make it to choir on time if you’re coming from the ALC.”

Godsey also said that something should be done about the bathroom situation, even if it’s not the most-used bathroom in the school.

“It’s not the most immediate bathroom for everyone, but it is still the closest to the choir and orchestra rooms. At the very least, the school should install a new sink,” Godsey said.

Even though she is not directly affected by the restroom problems, senior Madison Bruce said the whole situation is disgusting and must be fixed.

“First off, the situation is so nasty,” Bruce said. “We have been taught ever since we were little to wash our hands after using the restroom. I would be very frustrated if this was in the women’s restroom. I would avoid using it at all costs. Not having a proper sink just promotes the spreading of bacteria.”

From a health standpoint, hand sanitizer doesn’t eliminate the need for soap and water. According to the CDC, soap and water should be used “after using the restroom,” and “before eating food.” Hand sanitizer should only be used “if your hands are visibly dirty or greasy,” but you need to “wash your hands with soap and water as soon as you can.”

Assistant Principal Dustin McKinney said that the maintenance staff knows of the problems and had planned on fixing it over the summer, but discovered extreme plumbing issues.

“The maintenance department actually had it on their schedule to replace the broken items in there this summer,” McKinney said. “We found there were substantial problems with the plumbing that were going to be very costly to fix. Costly projects such as the one required to fix the plumbing in the G Hall bathroom have a much longer process of approval to get fixed.”

McKinney said the maintenance team could begin work on resolving the issues as early as Friday, Sept. 27.