Off-Campus Student Learns True Despair of Campus Life

The Backdoor is a work of fiction and humor.

WHEN ONE ENCOUNTERS a Lewis & Clark underclassmen, it is a logical assumption that they live on campus. But there are a few wily students who manage to dodge the four semester living requirement. One of them recently visited a dorm for the first time. What happened next will shock you.

Matthew Kingsley is a first year student and lifelong anti-authoritarian. Kingsley lives off campus due to an ideological objection to, “living on the man’s property,” and pays for his apartment with Patreon donations he received from fans of his “Anarchy is Our Specialty” podcast.

“I never had enough friends to visit a dorm or enough self-loathing to visit The Bon,” he said. “So I don’t bother hanging around.”

But that all changed on the night of Feb. 26. Kingsley was invited to participate in a study session with several other students.

“I usually would have just said no, but one person in the group — I think her name was Alexis or Alyssa or something — was totally flirting with me,” he said. “I figured I could cut back to only seven hours of livestreaming per day if it meant I might have someone to discuss ‘V for Vendetta’ with over spring break.”

When asked about Kingsley’s statements, the mentioned group member denied all accusations.

Kingsley may have gone to that study session hoping to score a last minute date, but he ended up learning something.

“I mean seriously, did you know that you have to pay for the privilege of having a tiny refrigerator here?” Kingsley said. “This is what happens when capitalism goes unchecked. And the worst part is that no one else has even noticed this. When I tried to talk to my group about it, they all just wanted to get back to studying! That’s how conditioned they all are!”

When Kingsley returned to his apartment, all he could think about was the plight of his peers. As he tried to sleep, memories of skimming the Communist Manifesto for his first semester E&D class crept into his mind.

Kingsley informed reporters that he has decided to become the new Jacob Riis, alluding to the journalist behind the 1890’s “How the Other Half Lives.” He plans to release a book of photos and interviews documenting the hardships of dorm life.

“In the 1800s people were forced to cram themselves into tiny rooms in order to live near their jobs,” Kingsley said. “Today, students cram themselves into tiny rooms to live near their classes. Coincidence? I think not.”

We reached out to Jacob Riis for his opinions, but he was unavailable for comment. Consequently, we’ve had to re-evaluate whether our staff’s séance specialist really knows what she’s doing.

Kingsley has already started a Kickstarter and a GoFundMe for his upcoming exposé. While he has made significant progress towards his $10,000 funding goals, reactions from the LC student body have been mixed.

“I agree with his policy on students not paying for anything,” Bradley Earl ’20 said. “But his demand for colleges to pay reparations to any student who has ever been given an annoying roommate just doesn’t seem feasible.”

“I agree that it sucks to be a poor college student paying to live on campus,” Capitalist Club founder Joseph Galton ’20 said. “But have those students ever considered not being poor?”

“Wait, he’s already raised five thousand dollars?” Arthur Chase ’21 said. “My grandfather’s GoFundMe came up two hundred dollars short and now he can’t afford a kidney transplant! What is wrong with people?”

“It would be really great if I could afford to live on campus,” Kingsley supporter Dale Fox ’22 said. “I’m really sick of people acting like it’s cool that I live off campus. Living in your mom’s basement because you can’t afford a dorm isn’t cool.”