September 1, 2009

The Necessities of Life

I'll bet you don't know what items are indispensable for the college crowd these days.

As a parent of a teenager going off to college, I imagine your list would look something like this:

mattress pad (for the bare bones dorm bed she was assigned)
sheets, blankets, pillows (of course)
cleanser (the dorm room was dirtier than we had expected)
toilet paper (no explanation necessary)
towels
textbooks, pens, pencils, notebooks, etc. (regular back-to-school stuff)
a lamp
some hangers and storage boxes for the clothes and shoes
a bus pass
a meal plan

All the normal stuff, right? Well, if you stopped there, you'd be falling short.

On the night before leaving my future leader of the free world at San Diego State University, I was informed, somewhat urgently, that, after settling in, there were a couple of items that she still absolutely needed to be able to be fully engaged in the life of the mind:

a beach towel
perfume
ice cream

I do not make this stuff up.

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