Move-In Madness
Saturday, February 2nd, 2008
Freshman Move-In Day: This day can be one of the most exciting, awkward, fun, scary, and possibly humiliating days of a young man’s life. But how does one prepare for this milestone event? What goes in to making a high school senior ready for his first steps as a college student? The answer…boxes; the most crucial of all the items on the list for move-in day. Not only are they the building block for the rest of the college packing, but anyone who undervalues their importance clearly has never helped a girl carry a car-load of junk up to the sixth floor of the biggest dorm on campus. Needless to say, it’s not the most enjoyable experience.
Now, with the university goods packed into hopefully no more than four boxes (any less, you probably forgot something; anymore, and the extras are going to remain packed for the entirety of the year), it’s time to take the long awaited journey to the campus of choice. As the car pulls up in front of the dorm, feelings of excitement are quickly overwhelmed by awkwardness as the car is flooded by upperclassmen who, for some strange reason, volunteered to end their summer two days early to help the freshmen move-in. The initial shock usually comes very close to knocking people off their feet; there is no way that people should be this nice with school this close to starting. Anyway, this is the point where packing with no more than four boxes really comes in handy. Not only does it speed the process along, but you don’t become the jerk that made these nice people make twenty trips to your car to empty it. This also means that they will be less likely to mumble obscenities behind your back.
The parents are probably going to remain with their child for the remainder of the day, probably mostly due to the mother’s severe case of separation anxiety, which is intensified if the child is her first-born. And where the separation anxiety begins, humiliation begins. Memories of the first day of every school year come flooding back, and this year there’s no coming back at 3:00 p.m. Oddly enough, the mother, between spurts of tears, still has the power to inflict more embarrassment on her child. The dreaded “go introduce yourself” comment quickly comes into play. It’s understandable though; it’s a natural occurrence for a mother to push her child to new levels of embarrassment. But simply by being present, the mother has helped along this meeting of new people much more than she intended…both students now have something in common and conversation will quickly move from dealing with embarrassing mothers to the new episode of LOST that was on the night before.
Life as a college student is going to be sweet. No more parents, no more annoying siblings, no more chores, and no more high school. Who could possibly ask for anything more than that? Oh wait, classes start in 2 days.