The sun is beating down causing the sweat to drip down from your forehead onto the white, paint-chipping bench (if you were one of the lucky ones to get a seat there). The more you sweat, the more water you drink.
As it approaches hour two of the commencement and your son, daughter, grandchild, niece, nephew, random kid that you met yesterday at Peet’s Coffee, has already been called, you may be ready to seek out a restroom.
But it needs to be the perfect bathroom, complete with easy accessibility for the relatives on wheels (or for those of us who hate stairs), air conditioning and great lighting to fix those fly aways and running mascara.
I have the perfect list for you and I’ve made it easy with a rating system on a scale of one to four plungers. Four plungers being the easiest and best experience one can have while using the restroom and one being please, for the love of God, do not go in there unless it is a dyer emergency.
And don’t worry, I’ve tried them all and picked out only the best so you can be prepared on Commencement Day to find that perfect toilet and get down to business so you won’t miss out on Mary Paul’s final “Gracious God.”
Crill Music Hall
4/4 Plungers
Located just to the right of the Greek, it is close enough that you could still hear the names being called so you can gauge whether or not they have moved on from the P’s to the Q’s. Also an added plus is that there are zero stairs and zero hills to get into the luxurious bathroom of Crill. So those of us who struggle with stairs can breathe easy knowing that those little concrete slabs will not get in between us and the needs of our bladders. Another great characteristic of these bathrooms are the hooks. So ladies, you can hang your purses and not have to place them on the questionable, liquid-covered tile (Is that water? Is that pee? No one will ever know). And men, you can hang your purses on the hooks in your bathroom as well. Oh sorry, I mean satchel. In any case, Crill is a great place to quickly go and be back in time for the final applause.
Cabrillo Hall
2.5/4 Plungers
Okay, listen to my instructions very carefully. If you cannot or just will not go up stairs, Cabrillo Hall can be the bathroom for you IF you use the side door on the right side of the building. This bathroom is spacious, well-air conditioned and well-lit. There is a slight problem though. If the Ortiz’s burrito is not sitting well, you may want to choose another restroom to… take care of business. Because it is a single stall, there is no hiding when you stroll out of the door and make awkward eye contact with the next person in line as you whisper “Sorry” to them and you leave the premises quickly. Just take precaution as you enter that bathroom as you may not be the only one in that green carpeted corner when you get out.
Golden Gymnasium
1/4 Plungers
Now you may be thinking to yourself, “There must be bathrooms in the gym and look, it’s right down the hill from the Greek,” right? Wrong. Very wrong. There are about four flights of stairs leading down to the white, green and yellow dome. So yes, you may not mind going down, but just remember, what goes down must come back up. And that trek back up the hill is not an easy one and especially for great aunt Edna who’s hauling her walker up 47 stairs. Also, getting into the actual bathroom requires a walk through the tightest hallway ever that only fits one body at a time, so there is a lot of awkward bumping into each other and shuffling backward trying to decide who is going first into the two-foot wide fluorescent tube.
Steve Anderson 
superadmin