education may be in the (toilet) tank but the women's restrooms in the columbus public schools sure aren't. it goes to show what 20 bucks, a little ingenuity, and a day's worth of elbow grease can do. (try teaching those principles in this day and age!)
in every school building in the columbus school system that i go into - and i go into all of them - the women's restrooms are nice. not nice as in granite counter tops or hardwood floors and not nice as in cool, hip, and artful lighting. but nice as in, somebody took a little effort to spruce this dingy room up a bit.
the decorating is never quite my style, but i don't care. i appreciate the decorating, period. how many public buildings - especially those that are decades and decades old - have decorated anything? and, as far as i'm concerned, if they're gonna decorate anything, it might as well be the women's restrooms.
the columbus schools must have a "women's restrooms decorating committee" or something because they are all decorated in a similar style........frilly. i'm not into frilly but on the other hand, when you're in the bathroom for reasons that you are in the bathroom for, a little frilly goes a long way.
in almost every single bathroom, someone has taken some pretty (if you're into that sort of thing) fabric and fashioned a "skirt" to go around the sink and to cover the plumbing. (the thing about plumbing is, if it's new, it looks good exposed and if it's old, it looks good with a skirt around it.)
most of the bathrooms have a little wooden table that someone has painted pink or pale yellow or light green or maybe they stenciled some flowers on it. on the table is, invariably, a cute little basket with a ribbon around it, filled with potpourri. there's usually some hand cream and maybe even a thing of hairspray (do people really use hairspray these days?) or a collection of little toiletry do-dads.
many of the bathrooms have a border along the walls that somebody either bought and wallpapered on or maybe they actually painted it. it's usually something flowery, which is fine, who doesn't like flowers.
speaking of flowers, there is almost always a vase of them. silk flowers, yes, but flowers nevertheless. i'll tell you this much......the bathrooms in my house don't have flowers in them so ha! they got me there!
anyway, it's always kind of fun to go to the women's bathroom in one of the columbus public schools' school buildings. you walk in feeling like a slob and you walk out a little prettier.
i hope that's not true of the men's restrooms, though.
