100-word rant: I’ll pass on the bathroom pass
With some classrooms feeling like Costco’s fresh produce section, it’s no surprise that I sometimes make trips to the bathroom during class. I abhor these excursions not just because I miss out on precious minutes of my education, but also because I feel the pathogens spreading from the bathroom pass to my hand and infiltrating my body.
Although the passes have supposedly transcended the flip flop era, they are arguably as unsanitary as the rubber sandals. Because many bathrooms still lack bathroom pass holders, students are forced to simply leave them by the sinks or even on the bathroom ground and pickup the bacteria-infested passes after washing their hands. Worse still, with only one pass per classroom, the bacteria from every bathroom visit concentrates on a single sheet of paper.
This is ironic, considering that the school introduced the new passes over concerns with sanitation. But no matter what the passes are, hygiene will remain an issue if some bathrooms still lack bathroom pass holders.
Even a cardboard box could function as an acceptable pass holder. But for now, I’d rather deny the call of nature than take a nasty pass with me.
100-word rant: Chew with your mouth closed: It drives me crazy!
No one wants to be disturbed by people crunching on each bite of the lettuce from their salad. Watching spit arch from people’s tongues to the roof of their mouths while they chew food is disgusting.
Please, do me a favor, anyone who chews with their mouth open, just don’t. It’s simple: Close your mouth while you eat and breathe through your nose. Fun fact, that’s what your nose is for! If you could just remove the noises you make with your mouth, the world would be a much better place. If you can’t eat quietly, eat somewhere where people won’t be bothered.
100-word rant: Being petite presents unnecessary, easily fixable challenges when shopping for clothes
I’ve spent years hemming dresses and skirts, cutting shirts, and rolling up the bottom of my pants legs, and I’m sick of it. It’s 2019 and most stores still don’t cater to people who are under 5 feet 3 inches. I understand it’s easy to overlook the height challenged among us. But when the only alternative to altering clothes is buying them from exorbitantly priced specialty shops or being forced to shop from stores’ highly limited petite lines, what’s a girl to do?
In recent years, the fashion industry has made moves to be more inclusive of people of different sizes and shapes, introducing clothing that range from XXS to 4XL. It’s time they extend the same courtesy to short people too. Clothing for super petite or super tall people should become the norm, and I shouldn’t have to pick up the thread and needle every time I want to wear an outfit.
100 word rant: vending machine prices are too high
My stomach growls. I am famished. I stroll out of my third-period History in Film class to use the “bathroom.” A couple minutes later, I am standing in front of the glorious vending machine in the student center.
When I asked to borrow money from my friend Kevin, he gave me $3, requesting that I buy him something too. We wanted “Rip Van Wafels,” which consists of two thin wafel layers and a thin filling in the middle.
I thought to myself, this small, circular snack that is less 0.2 inches thick has to be pretty cheap. Surely I can buy two of them with three dollars right?
I was wrong. Each Wafel costs $1.75. I check the prices of the other snacks. From a small bag of chips that also costs $1.75 to a protein bar apparently worth $2.25, there were very few items that I could afford.
Dejected, I bought one wafel and shuffled back to class, hoping Kevin would share it with me. Unfortunately, he did not, and the pain of hunger continued to gnaw at me until lunch.
The bottom line: Lower the darn prices in the vending machine.