We’ve all opened our Chromebooks and realized they’re on extremely low battery. If you’re lucky enough to have brought a charger, you’ll pull it out of your backpack frantically to make it to the nearest outlet. Or, you ask tentatively if anyone near you has a charger. Regardless of how you get a hold of a charger, you plug into an outlet near you. Your Chromebook is saved at the last minute, its battery filling back up slowly.

That is, unless you’re in the Lake Forest High School library.

The Lake Forest High School library is an impressive facility — two stories, colorful couches, glass details, modern tables and chairs, even TV’s. With the furnishing being so beautiful, you’d think a basic element, their charging outlets, would work. Well, that is not the case.

As a freshman, I was young and full of hope going into the library. When my Chromebook notified me it was on 5% battery, I rushed to the nearest charging outlet, heart pounding. I knew I would be rescued by the outlets that seemed to spring out everywhere. They were in the walls, the floor, the tables, even the couches! The first outlet I tried, to my surprise, didn’t work. I watched as I plugged into it and the battery level on my Chromebook didn’t change. Thinking it was simply a mistake, I unplugged my charger and then tried it again… Nothing. I moved to a different outlet. I assumed the previous outlet was just broken. Instead, I discovered the same thing happened with the next outlet, and the next one, and the next one. It was like a recurring nightmare.

Fast forward to senior year. I don’t use the library as often, nor do I leave my Chromebook uncharged as much. I actually haven’t tried to use the library chargers in quite a long time. Last week, however, I happened to run out of battery while I was in the library. I was at a table, so I plugged into one of the charging outlets that sits in the middle of it. My calm demeanor immediately shifted to disbelief. Seriously? The outlets in here STILL don’t work? I walked up to the librarian desk and asked one of them if the charging outlets worked on the tables. She responded, “No, they unfortunately don’t work.” She showed me an outlet that did work, at least 30 feet from where I had previously been sitting with my friends. I had to uproot them and bring them all the way across the library just to use a working outlet. As I dragged all my stuff over to the new outlet, only one thought crossed my head: I’m writing a Forest Scout article about this. You will rue this day.

So here’s the raw truth: we have sushi that costs fifteen dollars and parking spots that cost thousands, but we don’t have charging outlets that work in our library. The last time that those outlets worked was probably when the snack shop was founded. They might as well just be decorations at this point. It’s high time the charging outlets start doing their job.