THE NEUROTIC PARENT™

Beware of Non-XL Sheets

GC has registered for classes.  After successfully getting into his 15th, 38th, 65th and 78th choices (because he was in the third registration window for first year students), it is now time to go to Bed, Bath & Beyond to spend a small fortune on items he will destroy, lose or not use at all.

 

The nice folks at BB&B have provided a handy checklist. My favorite section is the new Bed Bug Protection category, which you think college residence halls would have under control for the $55k we're spending. Luckily, I have a kid who believes that less is more - he only wants a Tempurpedic memory foam mattress topper (which costs more than a decent single bed), and in exchange, will do without the shower caddy, dry erase board and clip rings.

There is some logic behind his edited shopping list: He ended up with no classes on Wednesdays or Fridays. And his first class on Mondays is at 4:40pm. So indeed he will be spending a lot of time on that Temporpedic.

 

A particle-scattering hand vaccuum? No way. I've heard that discriminating college kids are obsessed with Dyson vaccuums. So, our shopping adventure is nice and minimal - the Tempurpedic and maybe one set of XL sheets (Yes, we received the warning that many a college student's life has been ruined by getting the wrong size sheet. Tall kids have been sleeping on regular beds at home for years without incident, but suddenly for college someone in the linen industry decided they needed five extra inches.) We've offered to buy two sets, but GC says he will absolutely not change them). And he insists on bringing the ratty towels he brought to camp, the ones we told him to leave there each summer.

A highly edited shopping list - pricey enough to wish BB&B had a layaway policy, while practical enough  to keep his room tidy and free of allergens.

 

 

Strange But True East Coast College Stories

As four of GC's classmates tour #Vietnam (trending) on their graduation trips, I spent the heat wave gathering blogworthy anecdotes from parents in CT, NY, NJ, MD and DC:

1) GESUNDHEIT - A rising senior Fulbright hopeful from Yale has already taken his GREs. He did very well, of course, but was not allowed to enter the testing center with his travel-sized packet of Tempo Taschentuecher, the more absorbant German version of Kleenex, which he had purchased during his lab research fellowship in Nuremberg. Although the package looks innocent and minimal enough, the proctors probably assumed that the small print was some sort of code for a mathematical formula.

2) MARSHALL-THEMED REFUGEE DINNER - Attended a foodie BBQ at a fabulous home in Bethesda MD with a fascinating group of DC suburbanites who needed to cook all their frozen briskets because of a prolonged power outage. Among the guests were the parents of a University of Chicago student who has just won the prestigious Marshall Scholarship. AND the parents of a Dartmouth student who leaves in September for a semester in the Marshall Islands.

3) NEST WISHES - As I blog, I sit on a brand new next generation 737-800 , headed from BWI to LAS (Not the most direct route home I know, but the best available on changeable Southwest).  My seatmate, who lives in Austin, just confessed to me that his wife couldn't handle living several hours away from their daughter, so the couple has purchased a second home in Virginia, where their child is working on her MBA. A lovely new tradition: A new take on the boomerang syndrome of kids moving home after college - who says parents can't boomerang too?