Somebody Told Me

So I'm sitting here in my new dorm room alone. I'm off work and all alone. Kassy and I stayed up all night the other night talking and we're both incredulous to be here. I don't know if it's the fact that I'm a Towers Kid now, or that I'm here, but Hutchy and Noor aren't, or that school is already here now.

Either way it feels surreal. I'm sure once the building is over crowded with parents and disgruntled students moving in on Thursday the reality will come crashing in.

Ha. I love parents on a college campus. There is no other group of people who look so obviously out of place. Especially freshmen's parents. There's usually a misty-eyed mother with her hand on her son's shoulders giving him in explicit detail where she and his father with be for the next six months and all possible contact numbers in which to reach them. Then, there's the annoying younger brother/sister (possibly both) running the halls, looking in other rooms, poking around in the showers, and being generally annoying. This is only topped by a gruff father (usually wearing khaki shorts with a great sandals/socks combo) complaining about how much he's paying for this education and that his son/daughter deserves more space than this shoebox with beds (all while he's arranging the furniture in the room and loading in boxes).

After the delightfully sweaty affair of loading stuff into the room, they may take a walk around campus. These squinty-eyed tourists are easy to spot: they look exactly like the aforementioned family, but this time they are traveling as one, scared pod of people. With hands over brow, they wander campus and fawn over the smallest things ('Oh look, Joshua, there are BENCHES outside the buildings, so you can sit and do homework, or talk with friends'- no one has the heart to tell them that good ol' Joshy will probably not do his homework at all the first year, and will probably never go to class, therefore never seeing that bench again, save for the time he throws up all over it the night of the Sigma mixer). Then they will complain about the weirdest things ('They don't mow in a diagonal pattern...what kind of college IS this'). They will most likely be in your way, and crowding the entire sidewalk, as well as assuming anyone they see walking around campus NOT looking as clueless as they do works there, feeling free to stop them to ask a question.

After they have had their fill of looking like idiots, the family goes out to eat. Move-in day is a cursed day in the restaurant business. As a former server, I dreaded this day. The overly crowded restaurant is made worse by the throng of people waiting to be seated, growing more and more impatient with every passing minute. To compound their irritation, they have time to reflect on how long it took them to move in, how hot it is outside, and how much the next four years is going to cost them. By the time they are seated they're ready to eat the server, drink their blood, and leave a nasty complaint with the manager. This is why if I ever work as a server again, I'm calling in sick that day.

After the family has stuffed themselves, little Joshy conveniently remembers that he left his sheet set at home, and has no body wash. So the family climbs back into the Tahoe and head to Wal Mart. There, they are met with what can only be described as a new layer of hell. Every single parking spot is filled, the lanes are teeming with people, and driving anywhere is near impossible. Once a parking spot is obtained (thank God dad brought a gun!) they go in, only to be met with more people than the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade could generate. (They feel comfortable, however, because everyone else in the store looks JUST as dumb as they do). They get the necessities, and some extras (even though dad insisted Joshua did NOT need the memory foam mattress pad, down comforter, and a panini maker-but mom was hearing none of it). After all of this they drop Joshy tearfully at the door of his dorm. Mom gets out to give a tender hug, younger sibling feels no need to stop watching the dvd player to get out, and dad gets out for a quick handshake/backpat combo. After a few rounds of generic goodbyes and 'doyourhomework's, mom and dad drive away (as mom tears up, of course).

Joshy walks up to his room with a sense of accomplishment and excitement, as the parents leave with false hope and naive trust in lil' Joshua. If I'm going with stereotypes and statistics, within a week Josh will have played more beer pong than necessary, spent all of the money on the emergency credit card momndad gave him, and most likely will have contracted an STD.

Now, Lori, you say. Not everyone ends up so badly, there are people who actually try and do well. And I'm saying I agree. However, I seemed to have befriended that entire percentage, however minute it might be. They would most likely agree with me that my depiction of lil' Joshy is mostly accurate.

That's not to say that momndad are to be looked down on, as well as freshmen. If I looked down on lower classmen I would have almost no friends. And I was there once. My dad and mom did the same things (still do, actually). It's part of the magic of college. Satirizing what's surrounding me is one of my favorite things to do....

You know you <3 me!