*In honor of "Move-in Day"

“Freshman Move-in Day” describes a national rite of passage that is loathed by all who participate in it. And all who do not.

On this occasion, hundreds of thousands of parents transport and then deposit their cantankerous offspring at an American seat of learning. Move-in Day—for reasons that have long baffled meteorologists, statisticians, and chaos theorists alike—always takes place on the hottest August afternoon of the millennium.

The event fills college administrators with abject terror. Their lolling, frisbee-swept quads, and tree-lined pathways lack the requisite infrastructure to handle what comes their way. And what comes their way is an unruly, snarling tank division of SUVs whose drivers abandoned all regard for road-safety and human decency on the Delaware Memorial Bridge.

The owners of those conveyances dock their massive rigs anywhere they see fit. They park on the gravesite of our school’s founder. Some station their vehicles in the Gazebo where Ulysses S. Grant once proposed to his sweetheart. Other parents alight from minivans which they unknowingly maneuvered onto the Campus Compost Heap, the centerpiece of the English department’s 2023 Sustainability Initiative.

Scholars, for their part, have their own unique emotional response to Move-in Day. Peaking through the blinds in their windows, the profs glumly assess all the campus commotion. It should be pointed out that the commotion they are assessing does not occur on their own campus. They actually live near a different campus, in a different state (Only independently wealthy scholars can afford to live near their own school. Only masochists actually want to). Be that as it may, Move-in Day reminds researchers that, yes, the summer has somehow passed. Also: no!, Chapter Three is not finished. Nor is Chapter Two, come to think of it. Only the acknowledgements have been written.

As for students, Move-in Day couldn’t possibly come and go soon enough. A 10-minute ride to the local CVS with one parent in tow is agony. But this shit? Six hours in a mammoth Chevrolet Traverse shorn of natural light by overstuffed IKEA duffel bags blocking the windows: Dad’s repeated references to “good decisions”: Mom’s gentle, but persistent, reminder that daily Adderall doses should never exceed 250 mgs: Rehashing that whole unfortunate incident with the D.E.A. that took place the week after prom: The endlessly looping Cold Play soundtrack.

All of which reminds us of Move-in Day’s driving narrative thematic: emotional asymmetry. For a rising Freshman, the occasion marks: 1) a euphoric beginning, 2) an open road whose horizon looks like a bunch of multicolored, dancing musical notes in a Disney movie starring Dick Van Dyke, and, 3) an escape meticulously planned for 18+ years.

For parents, by contrast, Move-in Day imparts the not entirely unconscious recognition that junior’s childhood is officially over. As Dad watches his daughter accelerating away from him (with a few thousand dollars of Target amenities in a pushcart) he remembers the precise moment she was born. He heard a ticking clock in his head. He always knew it was a countdown of sorts, but never dared to think about what that sound meant. Now the ticking is back and it just got louder.

Mom (who majored in Comp Lit) grumbles to Dad, “It’s our August alright.” Dad (who majored in Business) does not understand the allusion as he navigates their minivan down from the Campus Compost Heap and embarks upon the shorter and quieter ride home.

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*I wrote this piece in 2017 for Melville House’s blog which was called “Moby.” It somehow disappeared off the website. I resurrected it here with some refreshers and suggestions from Catherine Hughes who TAs our “Comedic Fiction” class. This was written in support of Campus Confidential which later came out in another edition called As Professors Lay Dying.