On Friday morning, we arrived on the Campus of Higher Learning and Mallie Bee’s new home. Since this is my third time moving a freshman into a dorm room, I know what to expect.
We loaded the car the night before and it seemed to me that it was the smallest load we’d ever had. From what I remember of Time #1 and Time #2, the car was packed, with barely enough room to cram in the student who was expected to arrive with all this stuff. BD, don’t forget to leave space for the kid.
Move-in day, despite the best of intentions or planning by the higher-ups, is always a cluster and we spent 45 minutes creeping inch by inch to the dorm entrance. Two lines to make it go faster? Nope, and chatting it up with campus security during the process found him in agreement, “Ma’am, they don’t ask me my opinion, but I’ll be damned if that wouldn’t make a whole lot more sense.”
Directly ahead of us was a family with a U-Haul.
A U-haul.
It took them twenty minutes to unload their rented trailer and Target must have met their daily sales goal every time they walked down the back-to-school aisle. It just kept coming with a shoutout to Costco for the cases of bottled water, snacks, Gatorade and Propel, toilet paper and paper towels. Then they took pictures of it. The crammed U-Haul, the pile on the curb waiting for the volunteers to load it up, the student with the pile, Mom and student with the pile, brother and student with the pile, Auntie and Grandma and student with the pile, and then finally the empty U-Haul.
I. Was. Losing. It.
When we finally reached The Promised Land we had our car unloaded and out of the way in five minutes. Five.
We forgot a few things, but Mallie Bee’s a smart one and she’ll figure it out, make do, borrow or get it next time she’s home.
The broom and ironing board that the U-Haul family brought? Will never be touched.
