When the next person asks me for my current address, I may very well find myself telling them, “I live on 1209 and 3/4 North 900 East of Provo, UT. My residence will be easy to spot; it’s the third cardboard dwelling to the left of the BYU Creamery. Our house is the one with the pink bicycle chained to the box’s handle and the fake flower sticking out of our paper-mache window box.”
“Why do you live in a box? Especially a cardboard one?” may be the next inquiry from my curious friend. “Are you financially strapped? Did you blow all your money on Café Rio? Should you apply for Section 8 housing assistance?”
“Why of course not!” would be my shocked response. “My husband and I are doing just fine financially; the third cardboard box was the best place available. In fact we are paying the big bucks for our spot so close to the ice cream. Sure the place has its problems. We have to replace the roof every time it snows or rains, and last month when there was that horrible hail storm, I had to take my husband to Urgent Care because an ice rock cut through our soggy, sagging roof and split my husband’s forehead. But I know a couple that pays $625 for a double wide box that is all the way on the other side of Wyview single housing. And we only pay $475!”
In reality I do not live in the third cardboard box to the left of the Creamery on Ninth, although the location would be ideal for my frequent Graham Canyon cravings. Instead I live in a quarter of a house probably built in the 1730’s, made to hold a family of four that now holds four families of two. Fortunately, this house is only a four mile walk from the beloved waffle cone. Four miles may seem to be a long distance to the single student who lives in Helaman Halls that can practically walk out of his or her dormitory building smack into the middle of lower campus, but to us married folk, four miles is a big bowl of yummy housing gravy.
We married students of BYU living in the 21st century live a truly hard knock life. But the fact is married couples at BYU were not always in this position. I often hear from the BYU Married Veterans magical stories about a time when there was on campus housing provided for people like us. To my great despair, those days, when sex, violence, and drugs weren’t on TV, Buddy Holly was on the radio, and you could survive as a married student, are over. The bloody fingerprints caused by changing Wyview Park from Married Student Housing to Single Freshman Housing are everywhere. Every time I have to de-bug my bathroom before taking a shower because the window in it won’t close is a time I personally witness one of those bloody fingerprints. It serves as another witness to the incredible injustice done to married students every day.
Just the other day I saw a colossal spider crawling across my bookcase. It managed to escape by hiding between the pages of The Dummy’s Guide to Removing Asbestos from the Ceiling. I am now forced to wear a mosquito net while I sleep in order to ensure she won’t crawl into my ear at night and lay eggs that will then hatch. The resulting baby spiders would then have the chance to crawl into my brain and cause permanent brain damage. My husband and I are just another married life horror story exhibiting the incredible injustices suffered by the young and in love. Sad to say, we are not the only ones. There are hundreds of stories just like ours.
Many people may begin to wonder, “Why is it, that married students are forced to live in such degrading conditions? Why doesn’t someone do something about it? For example, why doesn’t BYU offer housing to married students?” Believe me; I feel the pain of trying to solve such a puzzle. This very question has been occupying my mind at 4 a.m. many a sleepless night. The only reason I can rationally produce is that BYU no longer cares for the married students. Everyone knows it is the unwritten rule that along with earning a bachelor’s diploma you should have earned a marriage license as well, or else you have failed to receive the full BYU education in the mind of every Mormon you meet thereafter.
In reality, Cecil Samuelson and his powerful buddies have decided it would be more valuable to humanity if all available housing go to those single students who remain menaces to society, thus enabling them to meet that special someone who will remove the disgraceful single stamp of shame. We married students have accomplished the goal and the housing authorities figure that if we gain nothing else from our BYU experience, we have at least gained the most important thing – our eternal companion. And when they stand before that judgment bar at the last day and Paul asks them why they neglected so many poor married students forced to live in soggy boxes, they will reply, “It is true I neglected the married, but how could I possibly have made housing available to them when I had those three thousand freshmen to marry off?”
Please don’t misunderstand me; I am not judging that housing authority. He has a very difficult job and we all knew we would come to this earth in the midst of trial. But in my opinion, the unspeakable suffering that married students have had to endure for the past century has been too much. No one told ME that mold would grow across my walls in the pre-mortal existence. Ours is an untold story, but now our story will be heard! We alone have the power to change the fate of every married student to live at BYU hereafter and ensure they never suffer as we have. I use this paper as a Title of Liberty for all you married students within the reach of my voice. I call you to arms in the defense of your family, your personal integrity, and most importantly, your right to centipede-free showers. Together we can rise up, seize the BYU throne from under Cecil Samuelson and send him back to where he came from – The University of UTAH!
I understand these bold words may come off as offensive to you, initially. I only ask that the next time you awake at 6 a.m. because your housemate’s baby is hungry and the wall is only a quarter inch thick, think on my words. Or the next time the rain falls through your cardboard box of a roof onto your baby’s cradle causing her to cry, awaking all of your neighbors – remember. The next time the heater breaks and you are forced to sit in front of your open stove, wrapped up in blankets with your beloved spouse, who is currently suffering from a severe cold, as you rack up the gas bill – remember. I only ask that you remember every time you must endure the atrocities prevalent in every married student’s living condition. I ask you to remember the suffering only we habitually endure – it’s absolutely repulsive.
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