Missing household items explained
A couple of co-workers, seeking a sympathetic ear, shared their stories with me after sending their sons and daughters off to college for the first time this fall. It reminded me of the days when our three kids found their so-called freedom away from home for the first time. Two of them couldn’t wait to get out the door. The third one got out, came back later, and was getting much too comfortable on the couch until the get-a-job-or-else order was passed down.
While all three have distinctly different personalities, they shared one common belief. Everything they owned was their exclusive property; anything you owned also was theirs.
We went through at least three entire sets of luggage, dinnerware, towels, washcloths and boxes of canned food of various sorts. Small pieces of furniture disappeared. End tables, footstools, pots and pans, toothpaste, clothing, an assortment of tools, and cleaning items of all types and sizes, liquid and powder.
When the kids visited for a weekend, we sometimes wondered if burglars had struck in the night. The shelves were often almost stripped clean. Not much was off limits. From razor blades to aspirin bottles. They vanished without a single lock or window being broken.
For those parents who think just because their kid took off for the college in the big city that they now have an extra space for a den or a sewing room, beware. The kids expect you to leave their rooms unchanged. If you must make any improvements, just convert it into a shrine, waiting for their royal highnesses to return for a visit.
“What did you do to my room?” That’s the hands-on-the-hips interrogation you will get from the youngster, only recently freed from family bondage as it were, when he or she returns during that first semester break.
You may find irony in the child’s burning desire to be as free as a bird while insisting that his or her corner of the home nest be draped in plastic, frozen in time, like a museum, while waiting for that overnight visit.
During those brief visits home long distance phone calls to their college friends in other states will be the order of the day. They might feel they own the phone, but you own the phone bill, which will arrive next month at twice the normal cost.
After they’ve wiped out your household food, supplies and furniture, you would think they would be fixed for the rest of the year. Not so. Expect a phone call sometime near the middle to the latter part of the second semester. Send money is the message.
What they don’t tell you is that almost all of the food, boxes of cereal, canned goods, TV dinners, and luncheon meats were devoured by their college buddies during the first few days after they returned to school. Now you have the satisfaction of knowing you rescued about half of the students on campus from death by starvation.
Not to worry, though. Other visits will be made back home. Don’t be surprised when you see a small U-Haul trailer being towed into your driveway. It’s on these trips that you will find larger pieces of furniture missing, along with microwaves, small TV sets, a mattress or two, and possibly a couple of chairs from the living room.
Were they selling these things on the street? A small apartment or a dorm room can only hold a limited amount of junk.
Parents of these college-bound kids will ask: Does it ever improve? All I can say is that whenever our adult children visit us nowadays, with grandkids in tow, they rummage through the kitchen cabinets like they had never left. Cookies, chips, candy will disappear in an instant.
If you need one law to serve as your guide, remember that their stuff is their exclusive property. Anything you own is up for grabs.
After all, you are their parents. That’s what parents do, sacrifice. And, no, it’s not going to change.
Mike Ellis is the editor of the Herald-Standard. His e-mail address is mellis@heraldstandard.com.