that’s life: Dorm prep brings back memories

By Tammy Keith

LITTLE ROCK — I’m getting ready to send my son off to college, so we’re trying to decide what he needs to take.

Granted, he’s only going across town.

Still, he needs the experience of living on campus. He’ll be rooming in the dorm with a friend he’s had since about third grade (I nixed the idea of an apartment early on. Not that it had anything to with my memories of dating a guy who lived in an apartment.)

For high school graduation, my son got a dorm refrigerator, which he’s been breaking in by keeping it full of soft drinks next to his bed at home, and I’m sure that will remain the beverage of choice.

His future roommate thinks they might need two refrigerators, though. They are using the other boy’s TV, and my son tells me he needs some type of couch.

Things have definitely changed since I went to college. I also went to college in the city where my parents lived, and I packed my little Toyota Corolla to the hilt and made a couple of trips across town.

I didn’t have a dorm refrigerator, that I remember.

My husband said he knew a guy in college who had a full-size refrigerator in his dorm closet. When the housing guys came around and asked, “Do you have a mini refrigerator?” he honestly answered that he didn’t.

My husband also had a friend at a private college where dorm refrigerators weren’t allowed. This creative guy took the back off an old cabinet-style TV, removed the tube and put a little refrigerator inside.

Of course, my son has the “basics” to take - a laptop, iPhoneand iPod.

The most important possession I took to college was my stereo. I had to have my 8-track tapes of Rick James and the Gap Band.

My roommate and I would crank it up when we weren’t studying. Oh, yeah. We were cool.

We had twin beds, about 2 feet apart, with a phone on the wall in the middle. A phone that my roommate would pick up and slam down to wake me up when I was snoring. (It’s amazing we stayed friends long enough for me to be maid of honor at her wedding.)

My son doesn’t have to worry about suite mates, either. When I lived in the dorm, four girls shared a connecting bathroom with one shower. That was like putting four cats (feral ones) in a shoebox.

I remember accidentally breaking my roommate’s hairbrush, and she demanded I replace it by noon. All four of us argued about whose turn it was to emptythe trash.

Boys seem to get along better, and they don’t care if the trash gets emptied.

The mother of my son’s roommate wondered whether they’d let us decorate their room. I asked. That would be a no.

My younger son found an ironing board his brother can take - it was leaning against a neighbor’s mailbox with a sign that said “Free,” and he dragged it home.

I told my college-bound sonthis and he informed me, “I just thought I’d bring my clothes home to you.”

He told me I should sell his furniture and turn his old bedroom into a game room. “That’d be sweet.”

He’s leaving his stereo. He claims it’s “out-of-date” since he has an iPod with speakers.

Cool. I might hang a mirror ball, too, put on my twist beads and crank up Rick James on the weekend.

It’ll be just like college.

Three Rivers, Pages 103, 106 on 08/03/2008