Moving Out

Moving into a new place should be fun, shouldn't it? It's easy to move all of the heavy furniture and wrap up the glassware, fun to pack up all of the belongings and donate or otherwise trash things you don't necessarily need any more, and inspiring to make a needed change in your living quarters. Am I right?

People who think this way have probably never moved before. Knowing a lot of us Rat Racers, I have seen that moving is a necessary evil (maybe even beneficial?) from time to time. Having known many of you for years, of course we've gotten new roommates, wanted bigger apartments (or houses), broken up with significant others, and even gotten jobs or situations many hours (sometimes many hundreds of miles) away. And we all know one thing: Moving sucks donkey balls. Changing addresses, being uprooted, feeling like you live in a hotel...not to mention all of the work involved in dealing with the various things and trinkets one amasses over the years. Among this trove of goodies, for me at least, is included:

1 Ronco Pocket Fisherman (piece of crap)
a Chinese Lunar New Year red Lantern
a framed portrait of Vito and Michael Corleone
a pair of Perfect Pushups
a massive collection of porno magazines my cousin left with me when he and wife had a baby (he didn't want the poor child thinking her father was a sex-crazed weirdo)
too many baseball cards and comic books. Why did I buy the cards? At least I can read the comix on the toilet.
a Ripstick (kind of like a skateboard, except deadlier.)

I had confiscated that last item from a kid who was subsequently kicked out of school for brandishing a fake I.D. and getting caught trying to buy liquor for a hotel room party. I have also acquired other types of contraband, such as a pair of scissors from a kid who was threatening to stab one of his dormmates with a shiv. The two had started an argument with racial slurs that included an octopus and some of the usual epithets we hear all the time. The dormmate had protected himself by fending the interloper off with an aluminum baseball bat, which I also confiscated.

This last episode is what sent me over the feeling of wanting to move away from dorm and relinquishing my responsibilities of taking care of these international students to actually taking steps to move away and get my own place. There are three things I knew I would not miss about being a dorm father once I tendered my resignation letter: getting knocks at my door at all hours of the day when I was on duty (and also frequently when I was off), having my weekends taken over by supervising/taking kids on trips, and the dreaded post-midnight fire alarm.

Being a dorm father means that you are these children's parents, basically. First and foremost, you are there to provide discipline in times when they need to do homework because all they want to do is play video games. It is hard to pry a kid from the World of Warcraft, for example. Also, you have to resolve conflicts between those who have had things stolen and those you have suspected have stolen, after you have determined that they have, in fact, stolen. You are also there to provide a shoulder to cry on, a presence in the emergency room, and above all, a listening ear. I have dealt with kids who are struggling with the fresh onslaught of adjusting to the amount of work that high school classes present; seen broken noses, compound fractures, and a case of pneumonia; and advised a teen through losing his best friend because they were both getting played by a neighborhood floozy. It's hard and unforgiving work, but it is rewarding to see the kids start making their own decisions and dealing with their consequences. It's the only way to learn! Although most times the kids don't even realize you are helping them, and you realize what it feels like to be taken for granted, eventually they come to their senses and thank you for your help. It's eventually rewarding. Yet there are also fun times.

A lot of time as a dorm father I spent driving on trips. Trips to the mall, the ice skating rink, Tokyo Town. These comprise whole weekends. It was nice to get some spending money and head out once in a while, but I am sure that I will be loving having ALL of my weekends free from now on! Although it was nice to get to a place and telling the students to scram for a while, it is time to start rediscovering the real meaning of TGIF.

Finally, the fire alarm. This was no ordinary alarm. This was my nemesis, whisking me from my dreams to a place where I stuporically looked for some pants, stumbled out of my apartment while yelling, as loud as I could, "Fire! Everybody out!" then running to the school's kitchen to find out that some senior has been smoking cigarettes in the north wing bathroom again and silence that sunuvabeeyotch.

I have less than I week to live (at the dorm) now. Although this has made me into a different (perhaps more responsible) person, I can't want to see what kind of person I will be once out of the dorms again. Perhaps more appreciative of the quiet, perhaps a bit better equipped for adulthood. We'll see.