They grow up fast, don't they?
My oldest son is a mere month away from the tenth anniversary of his birth. Baby Elvis, as we nicknamed him back then due to his thick dark hair and long sideburns, now watches "Sports Center" religiously and dreams of the type of car he will purchase when he signs his first professional sports contract.
On Sunday, I drove him to the campus of Eastern Michigan University to attend his first overnight sports camp. A five-day, four-night training program established for advanced-level soccer players, the camp included room and board in an authentic, soon-to-be-condemned freshman dormitory.
As we lugged his bags down the narrow hallway to his room, I began to have flashbacks to my first days as a freshman, many moons (and beers) ago.
When I left for college, disco was dying and new wave music was actually "new." Yet some things can still trigger a vivid recollection, things like the pungent, musty odor I detected the moment I walked into my son’s dorm room.
"Wow. I’d forgotten what these rooms smell like."
"You didn’t go here, Dad."
"No, but believe me – dorm rooms all smell the same."
"You mean, gross?"
"You’ll get used to it. In fact, once the year is up, you’ll actually find you miss the smell."
"Yeah, except I’m only gonna be here for five days."
"Oh, right. Well, maybe you won’t get used to it."
I busied myself by helping unpack the month’s worth of clothes, sundries and snacks his mother had packed for him. The kid had more pairs of boxer shorts than K-Mart. He could probably change hourly and still not fully deplete his supply.
"Mom went a little crazy, eh?"
"Dad, you packed my boxers. Remember?"
"Hey – better safe than sorry."
"If you say so."
Soon, music was blaring from his boom box and kids were strolling in to say "Yo" and munch on his snacks.
I sat in the corner and tried to make sense of the memories and emotions racing through my mind.
"You okay, Dad?"
"What? Oh, yeah, I’m fine. I was just thinking about the past. And the future."
"You mean when I go to college?"
"Yeah."
"So what was your first day of college like?"
"Do you really want to know?"
"Yep."
I considered telling him about how my anxiety had led me to go to a party with some kids I had just met and, wanting desperately to fit in, to drink way too much alcohol.
Before I could decide on my answer, one of the camp’s coaches stuck his head in the room to fetch the boys for their orientation meeting.
I gave him a hug goodbye and headed for my car.
Then next evening I returned, partly to bring him the alarm clock he’d forgotten, partly to see how he’d done that first night.
As it turned out, he’d woken up in the middle of the night with a bout of nauseousness that eventually led to an hour of clutching the toilet and vomiting. Mild food poisoning was the diagnosis.
"I’ve been okay all day today," he said in response to my concerned expression.
"You sure?"
"Yeah, I’m sure."
We sat together for a moment without saying a word.
"Hey," I said, "remember when you asked me what my first day of college was like?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, now you know."
Copyright 2003 Marc L. Prey
All rights reserved.
Tuesday, July 15, 2003
Tuesday, July 08, 2003
The quest for the Holy Grail
In the quest to find our version of the Holy Grail – that perfect combination of community, schools, neighborhood, house and lot – we recently moved to the small town of Milford, Michigan.
And like any good quest, we endured our share of trials and tribulations.
The Trial of the Boxes.
To save a little money, we decided to move all of our boxed items, leaving only those items likely to cause a hernia for the moving company. During the four days between our closing and moving dates, we transported countless boxes to the new house.
Each night, I surveyed the remaining boxes and smiled, knowing we had made a significant dent in the pile.
But each morning, I shockingly discovered the pile had managed to multiply, like rabbits on Viagra.
Ripping open one of the boxes, I recoiled from a paper cut that nearly severed one finger.
"Yow!"
"What now?" came the curt response from my harried wife.
"I almost cut my finger off on this box top!"
She examined the injury.
"It’s just a little flesh wound," she said. "It’s not even bleeding."
"Yet!"
My pain grew as I looked inside the offending box. It contained items that hadn’t been "unboxed" since our last move, some four years before.
Or even longer.
"Dear?" I said, sucking on my finger.
"What?"
"Do we really need this Oriental dinner set?"
"Yes. It was a wedding gift from a good friend of mine."
"But it hasn’t been out of the box since our wedding night."
At this point she opened a nearby box and pulled out a college text book.
"And what about your old Human Anatomy text book?"
"What about it?"
"Hey, if you don’t know human anatomy by now... ."
Ouch.
The Trial of the Well.
My wife and I were raised on city water. Cold, clear, chemical-filled city water.
Boy, do we miss it.
The water in our new home originates from a well.
As a result, it tastes funny.
But the worst quality of our water is, undoubtedly, the smell.
Actually, it reminds me of my childhood.
One year, my mother forced us to hand-paint hardboiled eggs. Then, on Easter morning, my brother and I received orders to search for the eggs, as the "Easter Bunny" had hid them around the house during the night. This might have been fun, if not for the fact that I had begun shaving earlier in the year.
Three months later, on an especially hot summer day, I began to detect an odor that seemed to originate behind our t.v. cabinet. An odor so foul, it made tears run down my face as I drew closer to it. An odor that seemed almost inhuman.
Peeking behind the cabinet, I discovered a partially decomposed blob marked with a small skull and crossbones. During the time it took me to run to the bathroom and vomit, I realized the offensive odor came from one of the Easter eggs I had painted three months before.
The smell of our well water bears a striking resemblance to that Easter egg "blob".
People in the neighborhood claim we’ll get used to it.
I think they’re missing the point.
The Trial of the Cable.
The first two weeks after we moved, we had neither television nor internet service. The prior owners had used a satellite dish for television, and – gasp! – dial-up service for their internet access.
As our family had no experience with a satellite dish – "Daddy, can we use it to contact aliens?" – and little desire to go from high-speed internet service to painfully-slow dial-up, we contacted the local cable company.
"Of course we can provide you with cable television and high-speed internet, sir. This is the new millennium."
Two weeks later, we were still stuck in the old millennium.
Meanwhile, my sons were on the verge of nervous breakdowns.
"Dad, if I have to watch this stinkin’ video one more time, I’m gonna hunt down Spongebob and squeeze every last drop of water from his little yellow body!"
"Then how about playing a board game with your brother?"
He looked at me like I was from another planet (summoned here by the neighbor’s satellite dish, no doubt).
"Okay. Let me see what I can do."
I located an ancient pair of rabbit ears and attached them to the one television in the house that was old enough to accept them.
"What’s that?" asked my boys.
"It’s called an antenna. It’s what we used to watch television when I was a kid, before cable."
"So then it doesn’t need electricity?"
"Very funny."
I turned on the television and managed to locate a fuzzy version of ABC. It might have been a professional bowling tournament. Or, possibly, "The Wizard of Oz." I’m not really sure.
All I could make out were a pair of red shoes.
My kids were so disgusted, they actually went to their room and began to read.
Eventually, we broke down and ordered satellite television and dial-up internet service.
Life is once again taking on some semblance of normalcy.
Meanwhile, my wife has threatened me with great bodily harm should I ever express a desire to move again.
Which is a shame, really, since it appears the backyard may not fit the inground pool I’ve sort of had my eye on...
Copyright 2003 Marc L. Prey
All rights reserved.
And like any good quest, we endured our share of trials and tribulations.
The Trial of the Boxes.
To save a little money, we decided to move all of our boxed items, leaving only those items likely to cause a hernia for the moving company. During the four days between our closing and moving dates, we transported countless boxes to the new house.
Each night, I surveyed the remaining boxes and smiled, knowing we had made a significant dent in the pile.
But each morning, I shockingly discovered the pile had managed to multiply, like rabbits on Viagra.
Ripping open one of the boxes, I recoiled from a paper cut that nearly severed one finger.
"Yow!"
"What now?" came the curt response from my harried wife.
"I almost cut my finger off on this box top!"
She examined the injury.
"It’s just a little flesh wound," she said. "It’s not even bleeding."
"Yet!"
My pain grew as I looked inside the offending box. It contained items that hadn’t been "unboxed" since our last move, some four years before.
Or even longer.
"Dear?" I said, sucking on my finger.
"What?"
"Do we really need this Oriental dinner set?"
"Yes. It was a wedding gift from a good friend of mine."
"But it hasn’t been out of the box since our wedding night."
At this point she opened a nearby box and pulled out a college text book.
"And what about your old Human Anatomy text book?"
"What about it?"
"Hey, if you don’t know human anatomy by now... ."
Ouch.
The Trial of the Well.
My wife and I were raised on city water. Cold, clear, chemical-filled city water.
Boy, do we miss it.
The water in our new home originates from a well.
As a result, it tastes funny.
But the worst quality of our water is, undoubtedly, the smell.
Actually, it reminds me of my childhood.
One year, my mother forced us to hand-paint hardboiled eggs. Then, on Easter morning, my brother and I received orders to search for the eggs, as the "Easter Bunny" had hid them around the house during the night. This might have been fun, if not for the fact that I had begun shaving earlier in the year.
Three months later, on an especially hot summer day, I began to detect an odor that seemed to originate behind our t.v. cabinet. An odor so foul, it made tears run down my face as I drew closer to it. An odor that seemed almost inhuman.
Peeking behind the cabinet, I discovered a partially decomposed blob marked with a small skull and crossbones. During the time it took me to run to the bathroom and vomit, I realized the offensive odor came from one of the Easter eggs I had painted three months before.
The smell of our well water bears a striking resemblance to that Easter egg "blob".
People in the neighborhood claim we’ll get used to it.
I think they’re missing the point.
The Trial of the Cable.
The first two weeks after we moved, we had neither television nor internet service. The prior owners had used a satellite dish for television, and – gasp! – dial-up service for their internet access.
As our family had no experience with a satellite dish – "Daddy, can we use it to contact aliens?" – and little desire to go from high-speed internet service to painfully-slow dial-up, we contacted the local cable company.
"Of course we can provide you with cable television and high-speed internet, sir. This is the new millennium."
Two weeks later, we were still stuck in the old millennium.
Meanwhile, my sons were on the verge of nervous breakdowns.
"Dad, if I have to watch this stinkin’ video one more time, I’m gonna hunt down Spongebob and squeeze every last drop of water from his little yellow body!"
"Then how about playing a board game with your brother?"
He looked at me like I was from another planet (summoned here by the neighbor’s satellite dish, no doubt).
"Okay. Let me see what I can do."
I located an ancient pair of rabbit ears and attached them to the one television in the house that was old enough to accept them.
"What’s that?" asked my boys.
"It’s called an antenna. It’s what we used to watch television when I was a kid, before cable."
"So then it doesn’t need electricity?"
"Very funny."
I turned on the television and managed to locate a fuzzy version of ABC. It might have been a professional bowling tournament. Or, possibly, "The Wizard of Oz." I’m not really sure.
All I could make out were a pair of red shoes.
My kids were so disgusted, they actually went to their room and began to read.
Eventually, we broke down and ordered satellite television and dial-up internet service.
Life is once again taking on some semblance of normalcy.
Meanwhile, my wife has threatened me with great bodily harm should I ever express a desire to move again.
Which is a shame, really, since it appears the backyard may not fit the inground pool I’ve sort of had my eye on...
Copyright 2003 Marc L. Prey
All rights reserved.
