This post is dedicated to all you fellow parents out there partaking in the annual ritual of moving your offspring into the countless institutions of higher learning across this great land.
You know who you are. All of you flocking to the big box stores, veteran patrons of the Bed Bath and Beyond retail brainstorm: ‘pack and hold’. Consumers of everything that is not nailed down in Target’s ‘College ’09’ aisle. Walmart, Costco and Best Buy fans. If you are anything like me, around hour 36 you were resembling some sort of parental Night of the Living Dead character wandering around the aisles insisting on ridiculous items like shoe organizers and storage bins ad nauseam; the last shred of your sanity gone out the window with your third Starbucks of the day.
Seriously folks, we have surely lost our minds, have we not?
And if I were to guess correctly, most of you went off to college with some big ass ole Bose 901 speakers, a few cinder blocks and wood boards, a couple of orange and milk crates and an album collection that took up three quarters of your parents’ car.
There were no fashionable color coordinated canvas storage bins or over the door hooks, no shower caddies or must have bed in a bag sets. You had some clothes, a few towels, the old linens from your parents’ house an indian tapestry bed spread from the headshop and you were good to go.
Show of hands please, how many of you had the coordinated dust ruffle for your bed? Yeh, that’s what I thought. Come to think of it, we did not even have bed frames, the fashion of the times was box spring and mattress on the floor. Anybody out there feeling like their college years were somehow not fulfilled because they did not own the ShamWow, or its pathetic copycat, the ShamEase (whose name is not nearly as cool).
So what has made us fall into this trap? Oh right, because we created it. We are the As Seen on TV generation of parents and damn it our kids’ will be organized and color coordinated even if it makes us broke!
Hey, I am not pointing fingers. I am as guilty as they come. You might recognize me as the woman who was wondering up State Street in Madison, WI muttering about the third curtain rod I bought that was finally the right size while searching for a hardware store to buy a rubber mallet.
Don’t ask!
(Stay tuned tomorrow for the funny stories)
Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.
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