On March 29th, the non-profit think-tank Principles of Operative Ordure Potential for Youth (POOPY) released their most recent evaluation of bathrooms at Carnegie Vanguard High School. In a rigorous analysis done over the course of six months, POOPY conducted personal interviews, surveys, and brought together a focus group to assess the potty situation at the school. This is their report.

Carnegie has 10 bathrooms split into 5 locations: locker room, English, humanities, STEM, and fine arts. In this article, we’ll be looking at a list of five important bathroom activities that you may find yourself in need of a venue, according to the standards of poopability, selfie lighting, cryability, dumpster diving opportunities, and space for flash mobs. 

• Poopability

Picture this: you’re sitting in class, mid-lecture, and all of a sudden, you feel it. Maybe it’s the coffee you chugged to keep you awake through your APHG notecards/WHAP notes/AP research annotations/whatever it is seniors are doing now, maybe it’s stress, maybe nature is just calling. Whatever the reason may be: you’re at school, and you need to poop.

Everyone poops, and everyone gets embarrassed about doing it at school. (If you don’t, seek a psychological evaluation). By far, the best bathroom for this sacred deed is the fine arts bathroom: every Carnegie veteran knows this. Though you may run the risk of seeing two pairs of feet under the stall door in this bathroom, the low traffic throughout the day means that you have the freedom to release your inhibitions and feel the porcelain on your skin.

Despite the downsides (travel time and possibly being scarred by those two freshmen, you know who we’re talking about), the fine arts bathroom is definitely the place to be when it comes to peak poopability.

• Selfie Lighting

Sometimes you’re just feeling yourself so much that you can’t wait until passing period – that bio lecture can wait, because the cute Instagram story you could make is calling your name. 

But where? Sterile classroom lighting won’t do it, and you can’t get your best angles if you’re hiding your phone under your desk. The green roof is being worked on, and that stack of 4x4s in the corner doesn’t quite suit your aesthetic, so that’s a no go. The library is overdone, and what if people think you actually read and try to talk to you about books?

The answer to all your social media dreams is right there in the faithful bathroom: specifically, the STEM hall’s bathroom.

With one big frosted glass window that catches the sun just right, your selfie game will be immaculate with this perfect lighting. Something about those stainless steel stall doors and the green/purple (pick your poison) tile stripe makes any selfie-taker look irresistible. 

• Cryability

Being at an academic school has the ability to put a lot of pressure on students, and sometimes you just need a good cry. And sometimes that good cry just has to be at school. However, no one wants to be the one crying in class. You don’t want to be the one putting your head down when your teacher comes up and questions, “are you ok?” when they really just want to start the lesson, because then it’s embarrassing, and the girl next to you, who you don’t even know the name of, doesn’t know if she should do something, and it’s just a whole big thing now.   

So! Instead of doing all of that, head over to the humanities bathroom. With a big stall that is (usually) clean and a generally smaller amount of people passing through, your next cry will be in great comfort. 

• Dumpster Diving

Okay, okay, hear me out on this one. With thrifting and other forms of secondhand purchasing coming back into vogue in recent years, what better way to enrich the circular economy than a bit of good ol’ fashioned dumpster diving?

Rather than trying to dig through the full-sized dumpster outside, consider a more time-efficient, slightly cleaner alternative in the bathroom trash cans instead.

By far, the best bathrooms for such an activity are those in the English hallway. Being the most trafficked bathroom in the school (you can tell by the smell), there’s the highest chance of finding a good yield. I found my Valentine’s Day and Christmas presents for my special someone this way! Just like the Goodwill bins, bigger amounts to pull from mean better yields: which is why the place to be is the English hall. Maybe you can even make a cool TikTok of your bathroom finds after.

Bonus points if you can find anything in the trash overflow!

• Flash Mob

With CVHS’s incredibly academic environment, students are constantly attempting to find ways to express themselves creatively in school. However, many outlets the school offers require extra-curricular time, effort, and energy (theater, art, music, etc.). 

Sometimes, you just want to break into song and dance with your friends, and the locker room bathrooms provide the perfect location for such activities. The layout of the restrooms means that the acoustics are amazing. The locker room setting also provides ample opportunity for recreating your favorite High School Musical numbers. The close proximity to the gym can also enhance your performance by echoing the blasting music of freshman PE classes, as well as the random yells of underclassmen boys taking gym class way too seriously. Seriously – you’ll feel just like you’re in a low-budget 2000s movie!

As two Carnegie upperclassmen, we’ve spent plenty of time in the bathrooms at Carnegie and have become deeply familiar with those gorgeous speckled-gray floors and gray-blue wall tiles. Our time at Carnegie has made us incredibly well-versed in navigating its lavatorial universe.

We all have a crazy bathroom story (and if you don’t, you’re doing something wrong). So next time you have to poop/take a selfie/cry/dumpster dive/have a flash mob during a 10-minute bathroom break, remember the proper pooper to pop into.