I just returned from venturing downstairs to a) use the restroom and b) search for a salad. The salad reconnaissance went well, but I have a few words to say about my jaunt to the cafeteria restroom. First, some background. The kind folks who originally designed this building neglected to foresee that us wimmins, being wimmins, might have needs that menfolk don’t have to consider. To whit, there are no tampon receptacles in any of the stalls in this building. WTF?!
To deal with this oversight, the powers that be have placed a not-so-clearly designated trash can outside the stalls. Yes, that’s right. Us wimmins have to carry our unsanitary refuse out of the stall in order to throw it away. Okaythen. That wouldn’t be so terrible, except there is no signage in the stalls indicating that one ought to do so. This is the campus library we’re talking about, so it’s a high traffic building. We get a huge amount of people who don’t know the system. And, this being orientation season, it’s a huge-to-the-nth-power amount newbies. That means that you get to wade through drifts of pad wrappers and adhesive covers as well as used tampon applicators. Again, WTF?! The pad wrappers are at least, well, sanitary. I do not, however, care pick my way through used tampon applicators. C’mon, people. This is getting ridiculous.
The other thing that pisses me right the hell off is that the toilets in this building can barely handle TP, so flushing a tampon down them is next to impossible. After the tenth flush, most people give up. And, who can blame them? It’s not reasonable to throw used tampons in the trash. It’s bad enough that we have to wrap up used pads and tampon applicators so that we can trek them to the designated receptacle–there is no way in hell I’m going to do that with a used tampon.
Is it too much to ask for refuse receptacles in the individual stalls?
red paper boat 