The women’s bathroom nearest my study carrel at school, it smells. Not of human waste, but of various fragrances which might be pleasant if they weren’t so overpowering. It has one of those wall-mounted dispensers that releases a squirt of pungent oil into the air every few minutes. Judging by the strength of the scent, it seems the dispenser was designed for a much larger area.

I wonder who picks the scents. Is it someone at the university’s actual job to make that decision, or does the pungent oil warehouse just send out their leftovers? Last semester it was cupcakes. This semester we started out with generic disinfectant, then recently swapped to floral explosion. Keeps you guessing, that bathroom.

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