August 12, 2005

Prepping for college—the Target way

By Stephanie Foo
Times Columnist

The excitement and adventure of getting ready to set off for college is pretty hard to imagine.

If you’re too young, you have no idea, and if you’re older, you’ve probably forgotten it completely—with embarrassing toga party flashbacks where other memories should be.

So let me remind you of the feeling.

Going to college is kind of like getting a pet. Both are life-changing turning points. Both incidents incite a newfound responsibility. And both require a massive amount of seemingly useless crap.

According to the Target catalog, regular 2B Ticonderoga pencils and erasers were OK for high school, but college is a step up and requires hard-core supplies—like super clickety pencils and about 500 organizers and white boards, chalkboards, vinyl pro-enhanced reinforced binders with zip pockets and a magnificent highlighter set with a fluorescent version of every color.

The last time I acquired an organizer, I was so thrilled that I used it for four days. Every single one of those highlighters will be lost within the first month. Nothing will be put in the binder—just shoved into the bottom of backpacks for future salvation. And the problem with super clickety things is that they’re fancy—so fancy that they’re liable to break in a second.

Like dog toys, for example—there isn’t any guarantee that the pooch will like the squeaky hamburger if he liked the squeaky hot dog. Even so, the squeaky bone will be lost in the yard, the squeaky steak will get buried and squeaky cats will be strewn, spittle-encrusted around the house haphazardly. The similarities between humans and dogs are amazing.

But hold on! They’re not pointless wastes of time just because of that. That bulky binder will be the perfect mule to smuggle sandwiches out of the dining commons. Broken pencils are awesome for picking at things and scratching “Moo” into the lecture hall armrest.

The organizer is good for writing, “Mon: Ask Prof. G about australopithecine development, write paper, study, take break to read some Freud,” and leaving it open when the parents come to visit.

And as for the lost stuff … well, maybe a hobo will find it and impress an interviewer with it to get a job! “A purple highlighter? This guy’s got shabazz! He’s hired!”

As for the dog toys … when a guest steps on one and it flies in the ear with a surprised squeal? That’s just really funny.

Before my college sent me my housing information, the pamphlets on spending a quarter abroad, and the notices telling me to get meningitis shots, they sent me a letter about bed sheets.

Each dorm is provided with extra long twin beds. And apparently, extra long twin beds are hard to outfit, so they very kindly provided me with a catalog to order sheets from!

Bed sheets, I figure, are like a dog bed. Dogs cannot appreciate a fancy red crushed velvet pillow to sleep on. They simply ignore it faithfully until one day, when they maul it into a worthless pulp.

Same goes for college students. They get less sleep than new parents, according to the Target catalog. And with makeshift beds such as a keyboard or a bookshelf in the library, students would rarely use their cornflower blue, 400-thread count, $100 set of sheets anyway.

Unless they are art students. When an art student goes through a blue period, he or she could simply wash those sheets with all his whites to dye every boxer-brief the color of the ocean. He could use the sheets to wipe up spills of mac and cheese, spaghetti or “virgin” margaritas. He can cry into them when he gets his first F on a painting or wrap them around himself at an aforementioned toga party.

All this may seem wasteful to money-conscious parents, but don’t be fooled! Simply having sheets, stationary, super hampers or other “pointless” accessories let the canine and/or little beast know that he or she is loved.

Sure, college-bound students may be defiant and haughty, but this is simply because, as lower-life forms, they don’t know how to communicate their feelings yet. A simple grunt of acknowledgement could very well mean, “Thanks Mom and Dad, I love you too!” Parents—at least keep telling yourself that.

Anyway, armed with an army of awesome stuff and the knowledge to not take anything too seriously, I know I’m ready for college. New experiences, new people, new freedom—and I’m going to take advantage of it completely.

I hope I don’t remember anything about this in four years.