Not all bathrooms are created equal.
Some, like the thrones in the Center for the Arts, are likely better than your own home, while others, like the port-a-potty-esque Capen Hall porcelain, make you fear for your health.
The Spectrum took the liberty of testing out the toilets around North Campus to keep you informed about the quality – or there lack of – of our school's bathrooms.
Best places to do your duty
1) Center for the Arts: The ultimate home away from home
The bathrooms in this building are clutch. They're always properly maintained, usually unoccupied and exquisitely decorated. It's out of the way, but it's worth the walk (as long as you can hold it in.) The epitome of UB excretion has just been found; use it, don't abuse it.
2) Law Library: Best place for a campus quickie
Do the deed in style! As a general rule, the higher the floor, the more privacy. These stall-less single bathrooms are spacious, conveniently separated from the general library floor and feature semi-soundproof doors. This clearly wasn't done on accident. Time to get a real bang for your buck!
3) Starbucks: Best place to go No. 2
These bathrooms are perfect for when going home just isn't an option. Not only are these palaces large enough to do cartwheels, they're also usually unoccupied. Due to the heavy customer traffic during the day, few patrons are going to realize your 20-minute escape from reality. Kick back, bring a magazine and enjoy.
4) First floor Slee Hall: A 2-for-1 deal
Where it lacks in visual appeal, the Slee Hall first floor bathrooms make up in privacy and space. Many students don't even know where Slee Hall is, so in the heat of the moment, it's not a bad spot to risk a quickie. Law library round two, perhaps?
This room may be haunted. All alone, sometimes the adjacent stall will spontaneously flush, scaring the National Geographic off your lap and the crap out of… well, you get the point.
5) Fourth floor Capen Hall bathroom - Diamond in the Rough
Some guys can't poop with their shirt on. Fortunately, two of the three stalls in the fourth floor Capen Hall bathroom across from the Special Collections and Poetry library, have coat hangers.
It's also a comfortably discreet venue for a daunting enterprise in a public hopper. With five automatic sinks and three foam soap dispensers, a desperate student could probably pull off a full sponge bath without being bothered, except perhaps by a poetry student… but they usually don't mind.
This "stank-tuary" actually doesn't smell, but this is probably because it's so hard to find. It's on the fourth floor of Capen Hall… but which fourth floor? Good luck finding this gem on your mental campus map.
Worst places to work your magic
1) Second floor Capen Hall Library: Best place to unknowingly inhale airborne carcinogens
Carcinogens may be an exaggeration, but breathing in the fumes from this bathroom can't be healthy. Combine long study hours with junk food, coffee and the worst air circulation on campus, and the result is the second floor Capen Hall bathroom. If an air mask and a poncho aren't available, consider relocating. Helpful hint: don't wash your hands. They were cleaner before touching that sink.
2) First floor Student Union: Best place to accidentally catch an STD
Throw common courtesy out the window and prepare to step into a petri dish of infection. The Student Union bathroom wouldn't meet the standards for our primal ancestors, let alone current students (maybe freshmen). Each porcelain throne is usually crowned with a wreath of already used toilet paper and there seems to be a "no-flush rule" in effect. Avoid at all costs.
3) Second floor O'Brian: Worst Graffiti
With the squeaky door, the hum of a broken generator and the gigantic naked BBW wall mural in the second stall, this bathroom needs to be placed on trial for disturbing the peace. The bathroom is quite large so there will always be an open stall, but there are much better options nearby.
4) Second floor Natural Science Complex – Best place to urinate for an audience
Don't even attempt to use these between classes. There is always a line, toilet paper is constantly in short supply and the floor is drenched in a liquid that one can only hope is water. The best advice would be to avoid these bathrooms altogether and take the elevators up a floor or two to a safe haven.
5) First floor Knox Hall (underneath the stairwell) – Worst Smell
There is a reason that urine soaked paint chips isn't a popular candle scent. Knox Hall has a patent on this horrible smell. It would make sense that the busiest lecture hall at UB has one of the worst bathrooms. Using any Knox bathroom is not advised, unless cruel and unusual punishment is a personal fetish.
