It isn’t every day that we think about the essentials of a public bathroom. The toilet, sink, soap, toilet paper, and paper towels all come to mind as bathroom must-haves. But there is one piece of the bathroom puzzle that is often taken for granted by your common bathroom user: doors.

Doors are critical for the optimal restroom experience. It allows for privacy, comfort, and peak performance. Most would agree that when using the restroom, unwanted visitors are never a good thing. So, if this is the case, why is a stall in Cresskill’s C-wing boy’s bathroom still missing a door?

Since last Spring, the C-wing boy’s bathroom’s large stall has been missing a door; if you are wondering how this horrifying reality came to be… don’t! It’s a mystery that not even we could decipher. However, the events that led to this do not change the present: the door is still missing. As of October 2023, at least six months after the door was removed, it has still not returned.

This is especially puzzling as the school has had enough time to make the repairs. Perhaps the large stall in the C-wing bathroom isn’t a priority to the head honchos/powers. What a shame, considering the students of Cresskill demand its return! Students must flee to the A-wing and B-wing bathrooms to get a door. God help them. 

Many students have a lot to say about the tragic situation. “It’s bad, in all seriousness, it’s actually terrible,” says senior James Arozamena. James fears people joining him in the large bathroom stall every day.

“It is blasphemy that they haven’t repaired the door by now.” Senior Tommy Santumo has a lot to say about the missing door. Tommy claims he was one of the first to witness the doorless stall. “It was a wave of dread knowing that we don’t have privacy in our public bathroom.”

Tommy believes delinquents were using the bathroom stall door as a jungle gym, leading it to break. This matches with James’ experience of hearing the earth-shattering, ear-splitting kaboom that rattled Mr. Z’s classroom one spring day during period nine when the heinous crime took place.

It isn’t only the boys who show concern about this situation, “I don’t understand… where is it?” Rachel Goldman expresses her shock at the situation. She was especially horrified that some boys had resorted to using the stall without a door. “Anybody who uses the bathroom without a door is really strange to me, and I don’t like that.”

Not only that, but she has questions as to how the door was removed in the first place. “Did somebody walk out holding a door?” she asks, which is a fair question considering it is a very large door.

 The male community at Cresskill High School continues to hold out hope for the return of the missing C-wing boy’s bathroom stall door. However, with each passing day, students are forced to accept that the restoration of the C-wing bathroom remains uncertain. It seems students just have to surrender to the fact that going to the bathroom with a stall door in the C-wing is a relic of a bygone era.