I don't know about you all, but I have never been happier to see a Friday.
All week, particularly during the last half, my brain has felt like it's full of mashed potatoes. It's very difficult to think this way because mashed potatoes are not very good conductors of electrical impulses such as brain waves.
Now, Fridays are always the slowest days to get here, and then they're in such a rush to leave you don't know what's happened and they're gone. They're a lot like pizza that way. It takes three years for the delivery man to bring pizza, and then when it finally gets there, everybody is so starved that the fumes make them inhale the pizza and it's gone. Fridays are like delivery pizza. It's true.
And this Friday has been particularly slow in arriving. Do you know why? Oh, that's right. Because this is my official start of summer, my friends. Today is the day we move the sis out of the dorm, and I no longer have to spend at least one night a week wading through freshmen to either pick her up or drop her off at Bethel.
Why did I have to do so in the first place? Well, because Bethel doesn't consider 300 miles a significant enough distance from home to need a car, so I had to talk to my building super and store her car at my appartment building. And shuttle her back and forth all year. Because there was no way to get her home during college breaks because ours don't line up.
Freshmen at Bethel are the worst, too. Apparently wealthy people don't tell their children not to play in the street, so every time I come onto "Freshmen Hill" to pick up/drop off the sis, people are throwing things at each other across the road. They're a little like geese, too, because they think they own the road and won't get off regardless of the fact that my car is clearly bigger than they are. One of them lost a frisbee under my car. I made them crawl under to get it. (I'm not a bitch, I'm the bitch. Get it right.) They have several acres of un-constructed areas on that campus, and these idiots need to play in the street. Hell, they could go behind the dorm or next to the dorm and toss frisbees there, but no. It's much more fun if you can look at cars like they have no business being on your frisbee field. I managed to avoid the hill for much of my college experience, but not this year. Oh, no.
Additionally, somehow I became the mother figure this year. I'm not maternal! I had to break out the spiked collar just to feel unlike a soccer mom. And when I say I became the mother figure, I mean that no less than two people on my sister's floor saw me there helping her carry in and out so often that they said, "Hi, K's Mom!" That was the end of my newsanchor haircut, regardless of how much less lip it got me from students at my day job.
I AM NOT A MOM!
At any rate, today is move out day. And then she goes back to Small Town USA, and I am, once again, a free woman. Don't get me wrong. I love her very much, and we had a lot of fun, particularly once we established that I was not there to take care of her and that spending all of Sunday afternoon on my couch was not an effective way to study. (I wouldn't stand for it anyway, jealous woman like me. Me and my couch have something special, and no one is going to come between us.) We had a good time.
But she worries me and needs me and insists that I have hidden stores of alcohol in my house. I wish I had hidden stores of alcohol, but alas, alack. There is no alcohol. If I had alcohol, I would drink the alcohol, and then there wouldn't be any, either. This is a concept she can't quite seem to grasp. You have no idea how disappointed she will be when she is alone in my house one day, raids the place, and discovers that I have been telling the truth all this time. She doesn't believe me because I can't keep from laughing at her when she suggests it.
And I think it's the needing me thing that bothers me the most. No one has needed me in a very long time, and I like it that way. It's weird, suddenly, to have someone depending on me for things and expecting me to show up and spend time with her and take care of her. And I know I shouldn't resent this because it's cute and she'll outgrow it and become like the middle one who only pretends to like me because she needs a place to sleep, but I can't help it. I moved here for freedom, I'm single for freedom, and gosh darn it, freedom is what I'm going to have. In approximately 7 more hours.
Someone remind me of this when I'm heartbroken about the fact that she's not here next week, will ya?
Posted by LoWriter at May 26, 2006 08:39 AMOh it's so cute how much you love, and dislike, your sister! Great article too, I have to say, having never had a sibling need me, I wouldn't have minded having my brother move to MN - I would probably still be there now if he had. But then, he's independant and always has been... sniff...
Seriously, it's not just the freshman - it is every college student at Bethel. And I have to admit (sadly) that I was one of the entitled ones. (Don't honk at me dammit!!) But then when it comes to cars and pedestrians I always have been. Now I am a bit better, but every student at Bethel will cross in front of any car on campus and expect it to stop... I know, I worked there for a few years. But freshman hill is the worst spot. You can just hit them, they are only freshman and you are an alum...
Posted by: 10lees at May 26, 2006 10:19 AMLo, you definitely did NOT reside on the hill. your Nelson-esque loyalties have embittered you to a long standing tradition of "frisbee over cars" - the more cars the more challenges. heh, i remember leaping over a Dodge Neon to catch a frisbee that was about to slam into the curtosy end-of-the-year dumpster that sat in the middle of the hill. totally worth it. why play in the field where no one can see you and your daring self?
the other part i loved was building snowthings in the middle of the turn-around. or am i re-living someone else's memory here??
Posted by: dr gonzo at May 26, 2006 11:09 AM