SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
TUESDAY, AUGUST 18
10 AM: Prepare to Hit the Road with Mom and Dad
Location: Dad’s Silver Nissan Durango, your driveway.
Ponder questions that have plagued young people since the dawn of time, such as:
- Where did the time go?
- What will you do with the rest of your life?
- Are the ripest years of your tender youth behind you?
- Do I really need three suitcases of shoes?
11:03 AM: Wait for Dad to Get Back from Sears with the External Car-Top Shell Because All Your Stuff Didn’t Fit in the Car and You Couldn’t Leave.
Location: Your empty childhood bedroom
Consider your materialism, money habits, and how we all eventually become obsolete and replaced by a bargain that came from Bed Bath & Beyond.
12 PM: Getting On the Road Already with Mom and Dad.
Location: Dad’s Silver Nissan Durango
12:15 PM: Realizing Life Will Be OK
Location: Dad’s Silver Nissan Durango
MOM: Are you excited?
YOU: There is nothing more magnificent than my life at this moment, open and free as the highway down which we roar toward my destiny! Can’t wait!!!
12:16 PM: Realizing That’s a Crock of Shit
Location: Dad’s Silver Nissan Durango
MOM: What classes do you think you’ll take?
YOU: Stop pressuring me and go scrape your eyes out with a cheese grater.
1:37 PM: Lunch
Location: Dad’s Silver Nissan Durango
Menu:
- Squished peanut butter sandwiches
- Raisins that were definitely grapes last week
- Melted chocolate licked off your jeans
1:45 PM: “Ughhh” Level Boredom
Location: Dad’s Silver Nissan Durango
Enjoy the gorgeous, fecund landscape detailed on the latest version of Angry Birds.
5:58 PM: Interlude
Location: A Best Western just off the interstate
This less-than-premium location is nestled among cosmopolitan hubs such as McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and something called Peebles.
6:30 PM: Dinner
Location: An empty tavern, silent except for unwatched flat screen TVs showing sports
Menu:
- Fried pickles
- Fried mac n’ cheese
- Hamburger
- Cheeseburger
- Double cheeseburger
- Double cheeseburger with bacon
- Grilled chicken salad comprised of questionable iceberg lettuce, two pieces of grilled chicken, and, surprisingly, not a dead rodent.
7 PM: Assessing the Likelihood of Getting Murdered in This Roadside Motel
Location: The Victim’s Chamber Best Western suite
This bland, creepy room boasts a striking resemblance to any other motel room featured in a generic horror slasher film. Take solace in the fact that if you are murdered tonight, you will not have to face college.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19
10 AM: Hit the Road with Mom and Dad, Part II
Location: Dad’s Silver Nissan Durango
Sit in Dad’s car with your heart aflutter as you listen to all the songs on your iPod that remind you of wanderlust, joy, adventure, and a slew of other emotions you definitely do not feel right now! Admire the beautiful landscape for the entire three-hour drive! Use exclamation points on every single one of your thoughts! Your life is about to change forever!
11:27 AM: Eye-Gouging Tedium
Location: Dad’s Silver Nissan Durango
Continue to look at beautiful landscape as you try to conjure your favorite childhood memories and stitch together a sort of “best of” montage from your entire life up to this moment, sitting in the backseat of an SUV next to a lava-lamp you insisted you needed. Set the stage for the future, which could possibly hold nothing but pain and turmoil, but is supposed to be some of the best years of your life. There’s nothing to be afraid of, right?
12:11 PM: Something Far Worse Than Eye-Gouging Tedium
Location: Dad’s Silver Nissan Durango
PARENT: Now, [progeny], college can be a crrrazy time. And we want to make sure you have fun too, but good, safe fun. So when some pretty young thing at a rockin’ party offers you a cup full of some colorful-looking thing, you splash it right in their face, make a low moan like a sperm whale, and hightail it out. You hear? This is for your own good, and you’ll thank us some day.
NOTE: Keep in mind this still beats the time Parent detailed proper techniques for oral sex.
1:29 PM: ARRIVAL!
Location: Your college
Here you are! The long-awaited arrival to your new home, which you picked because you liked the old-timey popcorn machine in the Hogwartsian dining hall and you wanted to take the “Beerology” chemistry class. Take in the atmosphere. Look! There’s the Bookstore! You can tell because of the green awning that says BOOKSTORE. And there are a bunch of students chain-smoking. And there: that’s your dorm! Maybe? You don’t really know! Enjoy the next 45 minutes with your suddenly far-too irritating parents as you desperately try to find a cherished connection with this place that only kind of looks like the brochure cover you hung on your bedroom wall. Partake in activities such as panic, disenchantment, and anxiety.
2 PM: Move-in
Location: A closet—wait, this is your dorm room
Here’s your room—swell! Other people have definitely had sex on this bed (and desk, chair, windowsill, etc.) in the past, and you get to sleep in it tonight!
ADDED BONUS: An appearance by your quiet, incompatible roommate who’s already found some friends, and whom Mom calls “kind of a drip.”
2:30 PM: “See ya later, alligator!"
Location: Your dorm
Get those tissues ready! Here’s what will probably be the third most emotional hug in your lifetime from your parents (behind your college graduation and wedding). Stand limp-armed in your room as your parents hug, weep, and say inane things like, “Wash your sheets once a week.”
2:34 PM: Endure a Behemoth Wave of Uncertainty and Dread
Location: Your dorm, after you tell your parents to just leave already
So maybe this whole college thing isn’t for you after all? Consider questions such as:
- Who am I?
- Why do I feel so alone?
- Where did my childhood go?
- Where am I going to put all my shoes?