The new drinking fountains spouting up all around campus, and especially in the HBLL, are inexcusably terrible.
The bad experience with these fountains begins at first glance. They are unseemly and made from cheap plastic, with a distasteful color scheme. If you think looking at the new fountains is tough, just wait until you attempt to use one.
To begin, it has a water bottle filler that covers most of the wall the fountain is on. The point of a water fountain is to eliminate a bottle, not to enable it. Then, the minuscule switch is un-ergonomically placed in the center of the face plate and requires a near Herculean grip to engage.
Then, if you can muscle the switch to turn on, your reward is a stream of water barely strong enough to clean a contact lens with. You are required to stoop your head to about waist level and place your lips so close to the outlet you might as well kiss it.
Due to the weak stream, it takes eons to get a satisfactory drink, all the while facing exposure to any other lips that have struggled at this same fountain. Sorry, BYU, your new fountains are a travesty. If I wanted to swap saliva with everyone in the library, I’d rather do it the old-fashioned way.
Joey Bloxham
New Braunfels, Texas
