I spent a particular amount of time compiling the first aid and health kit: vitamins, Advil, Tylenol, Benadryl, band-aids, peroxide, gauze and vet wrap (because this stuff is magic no matter what kind of mammal you are!).
Next up were the cleaning supplies: a Swiffer duster, hand held vacuum (because the dorm room was the size of a shoe box), dish soap, trash bags, and disinfecting wipes. Lots of disinfecting wipes.
“Touch surfaces — door knobs, light switches, your desk — use the wipes on aaallllll of the touch surfaces!” I instructed our son. After all, we know the dorm is a petri dish of ick.
Fast forward to nine months later: move-out day.
Many items did not make the trek home as they were, well … full of the ick. But a few things did make it home for a steaming hot wash, such as the bedding.
“You can use that when you move in again this fall.”
When it came time to put the items in storage, the first aid/health kit was a little disturbed with a few things open and used.
The cleaning items though? Brand spanking new.
Any sympathy our son had garnered when he contracted the Freshman Flu was gone.
“Did you even TRY to disinfect anything in your room?”
Not that he necessarily contracted the crud in the dorm, after all he spent many hours in the classroom, too (and athletic events, and “the library.”), but at least give yourself — and your mom — that false sense of security.
You know? The old college try! Wipe things down! OPEN the container of disinfecting wipes.
When our second son left for college, I did the same, sort of: a first aid/health kit and one container of disinfectant wipes. Nothing else. Just one container of wipes because I learned the hard way the first time.
He, too, spent his first semester fighting off the Freshman Flu among other things. And when the semester ended, he moved himself and a few items back home for break.
We decided to follow him back to college on move-in day and help him get settled again. To be honest, it was for my own mental health because I wasn’t quite ready to let him go just yet.
We started hauling in his stuff and I went to find a wipe for his desk that had collected a layer of dust.
But, I didn’t find a disinfecting wipe. I found a completely unopened container of disinfecting wipes.
“Really, son? You, too? Why do I buy these things?”
So, I cracked open the container and wiped down everything: desk, door knobs, fridge, microwave, knobs, switches — you name it.
Do I expect a wipe down to happen again before the end of spring semester? Nope. I’ve wiped clean all of my hopes. I expect to move that now half-empty container of disinfecting wipes into his new dorm room in August.
Motherhood, Part II, is a recurring column in the News-Sun.
About the Author