Water trickles in thin rivulets down my hands which are dangling by my sides; it gathers into little tears at my fingertips before dripping onto the floor. Frustrated, I shake my hands off, water droplets flinging out away from me to both sides before wiping both my hands firmly on the front of my shirt. As my hands drag across the fabric, wet hand prints are left in their wake. Now, for the next 20 minutes, I have to walk around with these big smeared hand prints on my shirt like I’m some murder attempt survivor. I groan in absolute dismay, glancing at the useless hand dryers on my out of the bathroom. I am not, however, the only student at this school who harbors frustration towards the lack of paper towels in the bathrooms. Many students are upset by the fact that only half of the student bathrooms in the high school have paper towels in them, while the other half have hand dryers. Students are quickly riled up when asked about the lack of paper towels, “I… hate it!” says junior Reid Barrett, before continuing on to say that “the hand dryers are great for when you want to warm up your hands before you dry them on your pants!”
With the lack of paper towels, students are forced to either wipe their hands on their clothes (gross!) or to use the low power hand dryers after washing their hands. The hand dryers gently and completely ineffectively sputter some lukewarm air out for about thirty seconds before powering down. At this point, hands are still dripping wet, only marginally drier than they were immediately after the water shut off. At this point, some very dedicated kids will smack that little metal button again and go for another round of tepid air. These people, however, are rare, as most people give up after just a few seconds, knowing in advance that the outcome will be utterly disappointing. So, here we are, a student body all walking around with wet hand prints adorning our shirts, pants, and the sleeves of our friends.

Goffstown has one bathroom in each hallway plus one in each lobby, totaling twelve restrooms (men’s and women’s), plus three handicap bathrooms and four staff bathrooms (which are fully equipped with paper towels). The bathrooms with paper towels are located on alternating floors, and some students have admitted to actively seeking out bathrooms with paper towels, even if it means leaving the hallway that their class is in, causing them to take excessively long trips to the bathroom in order to avoid the hand dryers.

This is a problem which can be easily solved, but for some unknown reason, there are still no paper towels in the bathroom. It would be a single time investment to buy a set of new paper towel dispensers, costing only about $30 per dispenser on Amazon. It really only is practical to have one paper towel dispenser in each bathroom, so the total cost would only be about $180, depending on which dispensers are purchased. Additionally, the cost of paper towels would be anything but substantial. The school already has to purchase paper towels for the bathrooms which do provide it, so there would not be a huge hassle. This is a change that would not only greatly please the student body of GHS, but would also result in much shorter bathroom excursions, and thus, much happier teachers.