Flushing away our dreams

It is 3pm on sunny March day and you have just enjoyed hearty meal of orange chicken and tasty lo-mein from the Panda Express. You are walking to your next class with watering mouth from all the Duke squirrels who are scampering about. Suddenly you feel time bomb ticking inside your body. Your stomach drops and your butt cheeks clench. It feels like there is Bolshevik insurgency in your colon and you have four minutes to achieve peace diplomatically. What do you do?

I write this column in order to serve the Duke public. From the goodness in my heart I offer you a guide of what really matters at Duke. No, this is not a propaganda guide like the tour that you are given on Blue Devil Days, where you are told falsities about the efficiency of e-print or fairytales about DukeEngage vacations that you can put on your resume. This guide has pure intention of improving your sad, academic lives. In this article, I offer you a guide to the Duke restrooms. Read on to hear about the best restroom environments on campus.

The perfect pooper depends on the person. In situations of little time pressure, where the poop approaches as pleasantly as drifting log in Black Sea, finding the best toilet is much like finding best restaurant. One desires an authentic experience—one that is clean but not overly so, which would compromise the very authenticity of the experience. If you are like me, you also prefer intellectual décor. It is for this reason that I lend my highest decorations to the glorious first floor Men’s restroom of Lilly library. The toilet seat is one which I have never known to be dirty and the restroom offers a clean, but no-frills environment. Written on the walls of the stall are profound existential quotes such as “It is what it is” to guide you through physical and emotional constipation of the Duke experience.

For those Library dwellers who prefer more privacy when they are flushing down their dreams of medical school, I highly recommend the single, handicapped toilets found in the Link, by the group study rooms. These rooms, with doors that lock, provide great sphere of peace and quiet for all kinds of excretions—from poop, to lonely love juice, to uncontrollable tears that seem to be pouring out of me for no apparent reason when I least expect it!

There are those poops that are patient, and then there are those that come blitzing through the Defensive Line like flaming American Football player. It is in these dire situations that one cannot choose based on quaintness, smell, or décor, but instead on convenience and access. Convenience depends on location. If you are blazing down Science Drive only to feel a lurch in your stomach, the Sanford School’s first floor bathroom is an easy-access area in which you could exorcise yourself of your demons in a non-claustrophobic environment. Buildings Gross Chem and Physics, however, must be avoided like plague. Their lab-like bathrooms are buried quite deep in the rear of these structures, and if the situations is urgent enough, one may not reach the final destination on time.

My dear American friends, we here often about these so-called problems that Duke must face in their lives. Everyday I hear words like “inequality” and “racism,” and “mental health.” But what about problems that all men—white, black, and female—must face at a moment’s notice? Too often, we forget about the real trials and tribulations that Duke students must face. I hope this guide can serve to find you comfort in the times of your greatest discomfort.

Ishmael is a Trinity freshman. For lunch, he ate double servings of Sitar Chicken Tikka Masala and followed that up with the Asian stir-fry from the marketplace. He does not feel so good.