Searching for Diamonds

They say that diamonds are formed as a result of intense downward pressure, for a long period of time.  If in fact this is true, I probably have a tennis bracelet or two waiting for me at the bottom of my family’s dresser drawers. It appears that my husband and sons are incapable of tossing out any clothes, no matter the state of un-wearability.  I put away my husband’s freshly laundered, neatly folded clothes, and quite frankly there is no room left at the inn. He still has underwear crushed at the bottom of the drawer, which in my humble opinion, pre-dates his college years.  This occurs when he buys new items, and then proceeds to ignore the layers of clothes underneath them.  The new stuff gets into the laundry cycle and overlays the former like a sedimentary crust. You can probably figure out his age, by counting the layers, much like you would count the rings on a tree.

Woe to the wife who cleans out the drawer and disposes of any artifacts! Apparently there is some special sentiment attached to each and every t-shirt he owns. If one does make it to the garbage, chances are it will be rescued, with baleful looks cast in my direction.  My husband tells me that he is “saving” all these old clothes, to use as his “fishing outfits.” According to my calculations, unless he plans to fish every day for the next 50 years, he’s’ got it covered.

My son’s have inherited this paternal trait, and can never seem to part with anything. There have been days when I tackled their clothes drawers, and ruthlessly tossed items in the goodwill bag. As it turns out, I usually end up accidentally tossing out a t-shirt or two, which was needed for some special event at school.  They assure me that everything in their clothes drawer is of vital importance, and to please leave the clothes alone.  Hmmm, wonder when you last wore that Carter’s onesie, in size 18 months?  

The other thing that is so annoying about this problem is the wrinkles.  I neatly fold each garment that makes its way through my laundry room.  After repeated requests of “take your clean clothes to your room, and put them away” the clothes make up to the bedroom.  There they are ruthlessly stuffed into overflowing drawers and turned into what looks like crepe paper.  I feel like attaching a disclaimer to the backs of their shirts stating “Condition of Clothes is not Due to Management Inefficiency, But Rather the Fault of the Wearer.”

Faulty diet and lack of exercise lead to high blood pressure, according to the experts.  I am going to go out on a limb here and state that overflowing dresser drawers are a significant contributing factor as well.  I know it is in my case.

I have to go and take some clean clothes to put away now, maybe I’ll find a newly formed pair of diamond studs waiting for me as well!

Final Exam Frenzy

My oldest child is finishing up his first year at college, and will be home soon. It seems like it was just yesterday, that he left. Many of my friends, who were going through the same rite of passage, would say to me, “at least he is staying in state; you’ll get to see him pretty often.”  My neighbor’s child was heading over 600 miles away, and she was saddened at the thought of not seeing her very often. She ended up seeing her daughter at least 3 times as many days as I did sonny boy.  Her daughter did not come running home, she only returned at the major Holidays, Spring break, and one weekend.  My son stayed on campus until they locked the dorms, and he had no other option. Don’t get me wrong, he came home for Thanksgiving, and was present for the dinner, but then he immediately went off to “hang” with friends. Over The winter break, he went away with his team for a training trip.  When Spring break came, he had some surgery done, and was zonked out most of his time home. I think all told we spent maybe 48 hours with him, over the past 9 months.

This semester he was taking Accounting 101.  In my former life, I was an accountant; in fact I have the Bachelors Degree to prove it.  Great!  I thought. This I can help him with.  Visions of us bonding over debits and credits, or having lively debates on the FIFO versus LIFO inventory valuation, danced in my head.  I don’t know what planet I thought I was living on. He called me for help on one problem. The conversation lasted 3 minutes.

Every time we spoke, I reminded him that I was here to help and guide him through this subject. In fact I not only promised help with the school work, but I was willing to toss in his favorite dinner to boot.  Nothing.  I think he started to feel sorry for me, so he said he would come home for 3 and a half days prior to his final, and let me help him review.

I was so excited!  I broke out my own (30 year old) Accounting 101 text, sharpened up a slew of pencils, and set up a study station on my dining room table.  He needed me! He brought home a practice exam with answer key which his professor had distributed.  We sat down at the table Monday morning and jumped in.  Let the arguing begin!

The first problem we had was with question number one.  I disagreed with the professor’s answer. I told him to e-mail the teacher immediately, to inform of his error. He told me to get lost; I probably had forgotten a thing or two over the years.  This of course led to the discussion of how I had given up a promising career in the stimulating world of accounting, to stay home and raise his ungrateful butt. We decided to agree to disagree on this problem and head to number two. We fared better, but there were still some raised voices, and accusations of “No, you are doing it wrong!” flung back and forth, ultimately we both ended up with the correct answer according to the solution key. We painfully made our way through the practice exam, with differences of opinion at every turn. After about 4 hours of study, we decided to call it a day. Later that night, I overheard him telling his father that we had spent over 6 hours studying.  I guess he was on the same planet that I was, when I thought we would bond over accounting.

Tuesday morning we headed back to the torture chamber. I had lovingly googled a slew of exams from the internet.  He was surprisingly unappreciative. We started tackling a few problems, when he noticed my old text book on the table.  On the side of the book in black ink was written    F**K this S**T (substitute some letters for the asterisks). Imagine my surprise, not to mention horror!  How had this happened?  I was a very diligent student.  I worked hard, and sometimes even did extra problems to make sure I understood the concepts. (Well at least this was the party line I had been spouting the last couple of years.) I was stone cold, busted. I had been found out! I bought used books from profane accounting students.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

We didn’t last too long that morning, and by noon, he requested to be returned to school. He assured me it was no reflection on my tutoring abilities, (or inabilities) but rather some study groups were getting together later that afternoon.  Whatever, he wanted outta Dodge.

His last exam, accounting, is on Friday. Then freshman year will be officially over. I will be picking him up, plus the contents of his dorm room, and bringing my boy back home.  I am looking forward to it. He called this morning to tell me that his professor had e-mailed the class to inform them that the answer to question number one was incorrect. “You were right mom.” Yes, my boy is growing up!