Picture this — it’s your birthday. Your very first one. You’ve just left your mother’s womb, and everyone is ecstatic to meet you. You’re immediately transported to a small, warm box, an array of nurses making sure you’re healthy. After a quick plethora of tests, you’re handed to your mother for the first time. A tear slips down her face onto yours. This is love in its purest form.
After your very first few kisses and cuddles, your mom glances at the clock. An overwhelming sense of guilt rapidly succumbs her.
It’s already been five minutes since you were born, and you haven’t started looking for UW campus housing. Your mother has condemned you to a lifelong cycle of the same brutal choice each semester — $2100 a month or homeless.
Flash forward to now, and the time is almost upon us — it’s lease season. The air is crisp with the scent of pumpkin spice and panic. You’ve been on what feels like a nationwide tour of student housing, except every property seems like it was designed during a fever dream. You’ve been on a million tours, and have seen all the same things. The first house you saw, which was relatively affordable if you chose to have 20 roommates, looked as if it was built by the three little pigs. The kitchen had one functional burner, a suspicious stain in the shape of Ohio and a mini-fridge that buzzed like it was trying to communicate with aliens. You see two mice on your way in. Maybe a house isn’t for you.
You find an apartment next — nice location, central AC, it looks too good to be true. The kitchen? Renovated. Bathroom? Sparkling. You and your two other roommates are walking around the apartment, all recording the tour to send to each of their mom’s for approval, when you realize why this place seemed eerily perfect. The last bedroom is the size of my left thumb.
So alas, you accept that you may be homeless this semester. Those first five minutes of life really did you in. If only you’d opened Zillow instead of your eyes.
Start looking early, Badgers — because UW leases wait for no one, not even newborns.
