By Josh Jiang
We’re always wondering how we can improve the school. Whenever this topic is brought up, you start hearing big words thrown around, like teacher-student accountability or differential attrition or lunch. While these are all valid issues, they are also wrong. Let me tell you what our school’s biggest issue is.
The showers.
That’s right, the showers. They are pretty much man’s best invention, and the fact that our school offers so few of them is worrisome to say the least. Many students don’t even know about our school’s showering facilities because they are shamefully tucked away in the boys’ locker room. But school showers should be a source of pride! Showers ooze creativity (and hopefully not other stuff).You know, one time a guy was in a shower and he was like, man, what if we strapped people to chairs and shot them into the sky at hundreds of miles per hour? Boom, air travel. Another guy was like, dude, what if we opened a restaurant that served chicken and stuff? Except that the chicken is not actually chicken, but rather mashed chicken bones and tendons and feet! Boom, McDonald’s. And I don’t care what you tell me, that food is delicious. Just imagine what our students could come up with!
Now allow me to describe to you a shower scenario: You’re tired, so you head into the boy’s locker room for some much needed “me-time.” You glance over and see that the showers are all open. A five minute shower wouldn’t hurt. As you walk over, the scents of all different soaps and shampoos soothe your senses. You can already feel the hot water running over you, and you breathe a sigh of relaxation. You peek into the first shower – ew gross, there’s a giant hairball, let’s move on. The second shower is more acceptable, despite a bit of mildew growing in the corner. You lay your stuff down, step into the shower and turn on the water. It’s freezing cold. As you jump out in a cry of agony, you curse yourself for forgetting to let the water warm up a bit. You land off balance and slip and now you’re sliding across the bathroom floor. ‘Hm,’ you think to yourself, ‘this would be pretty fun if, you know, I wasn’t in the bathroom. Perhaps I can make a large, horizontal, plastic slide with water on it, and people could take turns sliding across it. I could call it the Slip ’N Slide® or something like that, but I suppose that’s a matter for another time.’ You slow to a stop and gather yourself. You’ll play it off, like it was totally intentional. You head back and take a quick rinse. As you exit the shower for the second time, you suddenly remember that you don’t have a towel…
So, as you can see, showers are a goldmine of deep and profound thoughts. Growing up, I wasn’t like every other kid, you know, who loved running around outside. I was more interested in spending my time in the shower, wondering what bark on a tree was made out of. And I turned out okay, right? Don’t answer that.
Even though it seems pretty obvious that renovating the school showers would be the smartest thing to do, there have been disagreements over this issue in the intellectual community. We call it “The Great Debate: Toilet or Shower?”. Everyone knows that almost all of your deep thoughts come exclusively while on the toilet or in the shower. Since the time of the cavemen, the greatest question on everyone’s mind has been which is better: the toilet or the shower? It’s a touchy subject, I know. In ancient Rome, the two factions were so divided that nothing could get done—Rome eventually fell. In the U.S., scientists were so desperate to answer this question that they sent people to the moon just to determine if showering in space was superior to using the toilet in space. Personally, I believe showers are better, but I think everyone should be allowed to express their opinions… as long as their opinions are the same as mine.
I’m sure by now you agree that adding showers to the school will be – pardon my French – awesome-possum. Now the question is what will you do? Will you stand for what is right and for what is true? Do you hear the people sing, lost in the valley of the night? It is the music of a people who are climbing to the light. These are tough times that will test the true worth of a person. A moral fork in the road, if you will. I’m just making stuff up.