You Don't Have to Major in Drama

            What is it about college life?  You can’t go two days without High Drama in the Dorms, Drama on the Campus, Drama in the Parking Lots.  If you want to be an actor, you don’t even need to major in theatre: It’s a built-in prerequisite for every other experience offered there.

            I have to confess, it’s mostly us girls.  We trade playground swings for mood swings, and our childhood pals for people we live with who then steal everything from our groceries to our boyfriends.

            My three boys never called home with wild tales to report of elaborate schemes to hide their belongings, get even with a roommate, or to soothe a crying classmate in 4C.  But girls can multi-task and do all three of those things before 10 a.m. 

            Our daughter described a soap opera starring two of her roommates who were hiding a third from the management who had kicked Third out, that lasted until two in the morning.  There was thrashing, there was crying, followed by a sunny day of everyone getting along again.

            “What they really need to do,” I told Bob, “is get a crop duster to fly low over all our universities, and release a cloud of Valium over the dorms.”  Hey, they do this sort of thing to control mosquitoes, and I think coeds pose a far greater threat to human happiness.  With ideas like this, I am amazed that I am not on ten different advisory boards.

            Bob was working at the computer in the family room as I was in the kitchen, about  40 feet away, but still in view.  I was cooking as the phone rang.  It was our daughter.  She needed help with more drama.  This time it was a creepy student who wanted to date her, wouldn’t take an obvious brush-off, and kept showing up and standing too close.  He made snippy comments to the boy she did want to date, he came by to visit and wouldn’t leave, and turned into a stalker who didn’t understand that stalking is supposed to be secretive.  She told me about his angry outbursts, his childish whining, and some other behavior that was garnering him one enemy after another.

            I listened quietly for a while, then said, “Honey, he’s just a tormented misfit.”

            Bob swiveled around on the computer chair and said, “Hellooo?  I’m right here; I can hear you.”        

            Well, of course now Nicole and I crack up and I’m laughing too hard to be of use to anyone.  Maybe I should ask the crop dusters to swing over my house instead.