Saturday, January 8, 2011
Brace Yourself University
Sometimes things happen that make you stop for a second and question what the hell you are doing and why you are there. This moment came to me after a movement: a bowel movement. Crowding into a girls bathroom and watching your professor fish a parasitic worm out of a toilet was my moment. Is this my life to come? Why the hell am I here and what the hell am I doing?
Time froze in that bathroom and I reviewed my time here at BYU. I came to last February, where I wore a shirt with a rainbow and an umbrella on it. Of course the reaction of my fellow peers was one of disgust, but one fellow student’s reaction trumped all reactions. He wore a “Yes on Prop 8!” shirt, and felt that my shirt with a rainbow challenged his political views. So the first thing he did when he saw me was yell out, “Faggot!” And in turn, I responded with a resounding, “Bigot!”
After a class of getting the stink eye and being called Queer every time I went to the back of the lab, I couldn’t take his idiocy one more second. So I tromped to his table and asked, “Are you from California?” He answered with some speech about how he was born and raised in Utah,”… you know, Zion.” I stopped for a second, looked to the ceiling and asked, “So why are you wearing a Prop 8 shirt? Get your own politics.” Walking away I had to call him an ass through a whisper because I didn’t need to get kicked out of BYU for cursing.
Later that day, we had a devotional from the highest up Catholic in the United States who spoke about Catholics and Mormons working together to defeat gay marriage. I was the only one in the building who did not stand and clap him offstage and I could feel that everyone was looking at my rainbow shirt. I wanted to get out as fast as I could, and while walking across campus, the guy with the Prop 8 shirt saw me and yelled out, “Queer! Hope you listened to the devotional today!” I glared over and yelled out, “You pompous bastard!” and then he started to approach me. I knew a fight was a brewing and I wasn’t going to be the loser. I dropped my bag and prepared for him to give the first punch, but instead he just marched up to me, took his gigantic cup of PowerAde and threw it on my shirt. All I could do was scream out, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?”
The campus police wouldn’t do a thing. They told me that I was overreacting and there was nothing they could do. They suggested maybe going to the Honor Code Office, but I couldn’t hold it together for one more moment, so I went to the highest floor of the building I had most classes in and cried in the bathroom for an hour.
I snapped back to reality in the girls bathroom, fishing out the worm, and realized that this was where I cried last February (in the men’s bathroom though). I had to brace myself back then, and now I had to brace myself because I was the student who was tasked to hold the jar with formaldehyde for the worm.
Time froze in that bathroom and I reviewed my time here at BYU. I came to last February, where I wore a shirt with a rainbow and an umbrella on it. Of course the reaction of my fellow peers was one of disgust, but one fellow student’s reaction trumped all reactions. He wore a “Yes on Prop 8!” shirt, and felt that my shirt with a rainbow challenged his political views. So the first thing he did when he saw me was yell out, “Faggot!” And in turn, I responded with a resounding, “Bigot!”
After a class of getting the stink eye and being called Queer every time I went to the back of the lab, I couldn’t take his idiocy one more second. So I tromped to his table and asked, “Are you from California?” He answered with some speech about how he was born and raised in Utah,”… you know, Zion.” I stopped for a second, looked to the ceiling and asked, “So why are you wearing a Prop 8 shirt? Get your own politics.” Walking away I had to call him an ass through a whisper because I didn’t need to get kicked out of BYU for cursing.
Later that day, we had a devotional from the highest up Catholic in the United States who spoke about Catholics and Mormons working together to defeat gay marriage. I was the only one in the building who did not stand and clap him offstage and I could feel that everyone was looking at my rainbow shirt. I wanted to get out as fast as I could, and while walking across campus, the guy with the Prop 8 shirt saw me and yelled out, “Queer! Hope you listened to the devotional today!” I glared over and yelled out, “You pompous bastard!” and then he started to approach me. I knew a fight was a brewing and I wasn’t going to be the loser. I dropped my bag and prepared for him to give the first punch, but instead he just marched up to me, took his gigantic cup of PowerAde and threw it on my shirt. All I could do was scream out, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?”
The campus police wouldn’t do a thing. They told me that I was overreacting and there was nothing they could do. They suggested maybe going to the Honor Code Office, but I couldn’t hold it together for one more moment, so I went to the highest floor of the building I had most classes in and cried in the bathroom for an hour.
I snapped back to reality in the girls bathroom, fishing out the worm, and realized that this was where I cried last February (in the men’s bathroom though). I had to brace myself back then, and now I had to brace myself because I was the student who was tasked to hold the jar with formaldehyde for the worm.