If you're a college student, you most likely know the terrors of having to share a communal bathroom. We all sympathize with the struggles of having to share one large, disgusting space with the rest of our dorm floor. There is a cleaning staff but we probably underestimate all it takes to keep the bathrooms at even a decent level of cleanliness. There are smells and stains and stray hairs, and you ignore them and just try to pretend you don't see anything. Basically, communal bathrooms are hell.

Now, I am not so much a germaphobe as I am a person who prefers things to be clean, and I have learned a new meaning of that word since coming to college. Back home I took "clean" to mean there were no stray hairs, no toothpaste on the sink, and really just no odd stains. This is not the case in college, guys. Nowadays I am relieved when there are only some hairs on the walls of the shower or covering the sink.

I picked up some new habits since I started sharing a bathroom with 40 other guys. For one, I spend a couple minutes before every shower throwing water at the walls of the shower to get miscellaneous debris down the drain - it is truly a necessity in college. I do a similar ritual when using the sinks. Most guys, it seems, are allergic to rinsing away their hair after they shave. I do not know why. Maybe they’re too lazy or, hell, maybe they just want others to have to be tortured by unidentified hairs. Well, mission accomplished.

I have been fairly privileged in the sense that I had my own bathroom at home for about four years. I cleaned it every week, but it was never really too bad because it was just me and my own mess. I did not mind it. In college, not only are we rushing to classes, but we assume that the cleaning staff will rush in after someone showers and tidy everything up before the next user. That is not the case. Nothing is truly clean, my friends. Everything is dirty. Always. Take my word for it.

Not to mention, communal bathrooms were not built for the tall. I am about 6' 2" and I am way too tall to fit in the bathrooms and showers. I am actually taller than the shower itself which means I hit my head on the shower head at least two times a day. Whenever I try to wash my hair, I hit my elbows on the hair covered walls.

For some of you who may not be as tall as me, just picture you are trying to take a shower in a fridge. It sounds absurd, but that is what I feel like everyday trying to shower in these 1 foot by 1 foot grime-filled showers.

To wrap it up, lets do some basic math: 40 guys + a few bathroom stalls + a few pint sized shower stalls = a communal mess for everyone.