Summers in Madison are a beautiful thing. Pitchers on the Terrace, Concerts on the Square, laying out on the Kohl Center lawn and for some lucky students like myself, hours and hours of laboring for near minimum wage.
The summer of '08 was like a dream for me. Working part-time as a bartender at the Nitty Gritty and spending my entire paychecks on liquor and chicken hummus plates at Mediterranean Café—I couldn't have loved my life more.
However, upon my return from a semester in London this May, I found myself in a precarious position I had never before been: broke and homeless. Like, I had a packet of Mentos, an Illinois Driver's license and $0.76 to my name.
OK, technically I wasn't homeless. I just couldn't move back into my apartment with my beloved roommate until my carpet-staining, long blonde-hair shedding sublettor packed up and got the hell out of my space.
So for two and a half weeks, I did what any self-respecting, acceptably-attractive-when-viewed-through-beer-goggles, college female would do. I shacked up with a former fling and kept a few changes of clothes in my car. It worked out rather well, minus when I needed to shower and said fling was at work so I'd sit at Starbucks, stinking the place up until I found somewhere to bathe or gave up and used the bathroom sink for a quick rinse. The staff was totally OK with it and never once threatened to call the MPD ... I swear.
Wasting time when you're homeless is not an easy thing to do. There are only so many free papers with sudokus and I'm not quite smart enough for crossword puzzles, so newspapers offered minimal consolation.
Accessing the internet was easy enough, thanks to the bountiful free Wi-Fi on State Street, but not being able to shop online was too taunting and painful so I abandoned my laptop and found other ventures to entertain me.
Luckily, I managed to convince my managers at the Gritty to let me have my bartending job back after having abandoned it for five months. That meant I had something legal and moderately enjoyable to do four or five nights a week.
It was the hours between noon and six when I found myself staring at walls endlessly, wondering if I were to lick them, would I die from lead poisoning?
With another stroke of luck, I snagged a job on Bascom working for a campus office. Another relatively easy and enjoyable job of doing little more than walking around campus, answering phones and using my mean graphic design skills to create the sweetest looking handouts in the world.
As thrilled as I was to find a second job in this hopelessly crumbling economy, it exposed me to something I thought had died out in the 19th century: slave labor.
Suddenly I found myself sleeping a maximum of four hours a night, forced to eat Uncle Ben's rice sides for two meals a day because nothing else can cook in a microwave in 90 seconds and I just didn't have any extra time to spare. Showering, which I already view as nothing more than a necessary evil, was eliminated from my daily routine because 20 extra minutes in bed is entirely more valuable than smooth legs and greaseless hair.
OK technically I got paid for everything I did (and actually, pretty well), but what's the point in having any money if you don't have the chance to drink it all away spend it on fun and educational weekend activities?
So, unlike the rest of you 35,000 Badgers who are dreading the start of classes, I can't wait. For me, the beginning of this school year signifies the end of my homelessness and a reduction in my 70-hour-a-week work weeks. And the return of my former drinking habits and promiscuous ways.
So welcome back to school. I can't wait. Anything, including packed lectures in an over-heated, unventilated Humanities classroom, is better than slaving away all summer. I promise.
Want to get active about defeating slave labor? Tired of working endlessly for minimum wage? Don't bother contacting Jillian at jlevy2@wisc.edu because she's over-tired and frankly, just doesn't care.
