UNR announces pay-as-you-poop program, hopes to offset budget
Casey Durkin
University of Nevada, Reno officials announced Monday at an open budget cut meeting that restrooms will be joining the ranks of affected university programs facing the financial chopping block.
With recent university initiatives to cut less useful programs, officials voted unanimously in favor of charging for the use of campus restrooms, in hopes to help offset the budget shortfall.
What once was a long running joke among Gov. Jim Gibbon’s staff has come to fruition after Gibbons overheard the idea at the capitol’s secret second annual “Screw with Nevada Some More” event.
“I think this is the best idea we have had to date to combat the budget cuts,” Gibbons said. “We have cut just about everything that I don’t find interesting and we are still losing money, so what better than to make people pay for something they can’t control?”
University officials strongly agreed with this initiative when they were presented with this idea at Monday’s meeting.
“There are two things I hate in this world: dealing with this stupid budget and a smelly bathroom,” UNR President Milton Glick said. “Now we can kill two birds with one stone.”
The original plan was to eliminate restrooms around buildings from which the school wanted to cut programs in an attempt to reduce people’s interest in the said majors.
Since federal law mandates all municipal, state and federal buildings must have public restrooms, officials have decided to put swipe-payment machines on every stall and urinal where students can use WolfBucks in order to tend to their bodily functions.
Security guards will be employed to enforce this new initiative during the beginning days of this process until students can win the trust of the university.
Though the overall cover charge to use a restroom for one minute will be around $10, the university is also employing a post-office-like method of pricing packages based on weight.
It is reported that for every three milliliters of liquid or three grams of solids, $10 will be tacked onto the base cost of the visit. An additional fee of five dollars will be added if an individual will be providing both liquid and solid waste, while disputed “accidents” will be taken on a case-by-case basis.
Stool technicians will be employed to oversee the process and measure the excrements with accurate calibrated weights and graduated cylinders.
“I love my job a great deal,” chief stool technician Jim Copo said. “It makes it easy to sleep at night knowing every students’ mud monkeys are carefully recorded and priced.”
Also, since waste will be directly excreted onto measuring tools, once priced and processed it will be mixed in with garbage to be sent off to landfills, saving the university thousands in water bills.
Supporters say that not only will this be a “green initiative,” but it will also combat the growing obesity problem as a result of students seeking to lower their stool mass to avoid the high restroom prices.
“This idea will really separate the boys from the men,” Glick said. “Because if you aren’t pooping like a small boy, then you won’t be able to afford this university for much longer.”
Casey Durkin is a columnist for The Nevada Sagebrush. He can be reached at cdurkin@nevadasagebrush.com.
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November 18th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…………………Yawn…………Zzzzzzzzzzzz
November 18th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Wow. Pretty terrible.
November 18th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
true that
November 18th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
durkin loves his shit.