Back in the old days, way before college, whenever I stepped in something wet in a private building, I simply assumed it was water. Perhaps somebody spilled something while mopping or maybe it was raining and someone tracked in water from outside.
This, however, changed after my first weeks at Princeton. I was thinking about this when walking up to my dorm room after Lawnparties, for I noticed the stairs were covered with liquid. It was splashed all over the banister, the steps and the landing. What was my first guess?
Urine.
Given the bacchanalia — which I dutifully participated in — this past weekend and my experiences during the past three years, whenever I see liquid indoors where it should not be, that is my first guess. It is sad, really, how people as smart as us — even if we do drink a ton — cannot even find something resembling a toilet when we have to do a Number One. I understand urinating in the bushes — that is what we have been doing ever since summer camp. But in trash cans, on computer keyboards, in the sock drawer and — my favorite — on roommates? Is it really necessary?
I should be thankful. At least when my roommate freshman year got plastered, he was able to find a bathroom to relieve himself. Of course, then he proceeded to throw my belongings out the window. Still, when I went out to retrieve them the next day, I did not have to disinfect them.
Public urination always gets a chuckle from the crowd. While I have seen fellow Princetonians urinate on public buildings, bushes and trees, I am always most astounded by the Conversational Urinator. The Conversational Urinator is someone who is really drunk and proceeds to relieve himself in the midst of conversation. I saw this happen on more than one occasion this weekend.
The campus could be treating this situation more seriously. At Miami University in Ohio, for example, public urination falls under the category of "exposing oneself" and thus students can be arrested if they are caught in the act. But at Princeton, Public Safety usually leaves us and our bodily functions alone. So long as we are not committing any additional crimes, public urination goes unpunished.
It is the private urination, however, that completely offends me. A few years ago, I had the unpleasant experience of walking into a hallway and smelling that infamous scent emanating from someone's garbage can. Sure, these episodes make funny stories to reminisce about, but when we have to deal with them on a weekend-to-weekend basis, it is positively disgusting.
For instance, I received an e-mail a few weeks ago about a person who had defecated in a hallway in my building and had left it to the maintenance crew to clean up. It is simply reprehensible that someone, irrespective of his condition of inebriation, could not control his bodily functions long enough to reach the bathroom. It would be even worse if someone acted in this way as a joke.
I have no problem with the incidents of urination I see on Prospect Avenue and near the various pieces of foliage around campus Thursday and Saturday nights. It helps the trees grow. But the things students do that explicitly affect the people they live with distress me greatly. Of course, as a third party I think these stories are all funny, but when we have to deal with these things personally — and eventually, we all do — it is not funny at all. So, given that we do not have classes the next three weeks and the frequency of drinking will be higher: Please try to remember — contemplate before you urinate. Seth Wikas is a Near Eastern Studies major from Beachwood, Ohio. He can be reached at sawikas@princeton.edu.
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