KAREN WIGHT -- No Place Like Home

I still remember the sinking feeling I had the summer of 1976 when I

opened my student housing letter from UCLA. I had been placed so far down

on the waiting list for a dorm room that my chances were slim to none

that I would get in. Everyone else I knew had slips of paper with

numbers, dorm halls and roommates that would seal their freshman fates,

but I had drawn the wild card. I was a girl without a place to stay.

My mother sent me off to sorority rush that September with only one

goal in mind: find a place to live. She wasn’t worried about houses,

legacies or espadrilles. Her daughter needed a room, and she needed it

now.

I ended up rooming with three other girls in a sorority house that had

recently colonized and was not full with its own members. There were four

freshman chickadees in my room, in a hall that housed about 50 girls in

all.

Considering the angst I went through getting to that point, everything

turned out nicely in the end.

I got to skip the coed dorm thing, which was fine with me. I shared a

bathroom with people who recognized the importance of having a blow dryer

and curling iron plugged in simultaneously. And there were plenty of

compatriots clad in Lanz nightgowns willing to go to Stan’s Corner Donuts

at 11:30 p.m. for a bag full.

Life was pretty good. Except that we all had a lot of “stuff” and not

a lot of space to put it. We figured out quickly that the sweaters could

go back to our parents’ houses until it got really cold. And even with

that theory, we only kept a couple of bulky cover-ups at a time at school

with us.

Shower and bathroom items had to fit into a wire bucket so they were

easily transportable. Wall space was a premium, so we each had a bulletin

board, actually a biography board, crammed with reminders of 18 years and

defunct boyfriends.

Closet space was a joke, and for the first time in my life -- gasp! --

I had to fold a T-shirt and put it in a drawer. We did have an iron and

an ironing board at our disposal, but wrinkles began to bother me less

and less over the next four years.

The same relaxed standards began to apply to laundry chores. All of a

sudden, I could wear pants more than once, knowing that I was now the

chief laundress.

Annie still has two more years at Harbor High before we pack her up

for her next great adventure. As I sorted the laundry this morning, I

figured out that as 20% of our family, Annie generates 60% of the

laundry. A fresh towel for workout, two more for a shower and shampoo at

home, at least two bathing suits and two changes of clothes every day and

fresh jammies every night.

Wow. I wish I could see the look on her face after her first week of

college. “You expect me to wash all of this?” I think she might have a

laundry epiphany.

The same theory will hold true for her closets, her bathroom and the

desk, all of which she doesn’t have to share with another living being.

Perhaps the gratitude level will escalate after she leaves.

Back to the dorm room. The world is a much more organized place since

I went to school in the dark ages. There is an organizer for everything.

And in a college dorm room, organization is paramount. Maximize space

with a minimum of effort. The college mantra.

The Container Store is marketing products for the “The Dorm Room Basic

Six” and includes organizers for closet, walls and doors, desk, laundry,

bath and storage. As organization goes, they have really cornered the

market. Check out their Web site at o7 https://www.containerstore.comf7

.

Another company that is capitalizing on the college experience is

Lands’ End’s Coming Home division. It has a “Dorm In a Bag” product that

will “outfit a dorm room in one simple step.” It includes a comforter, a

200-count cotton flat and fitted sheet, a pillowcase, two extra-long

cotton bath towels, two wash clothes and a laundry bag. The “Dorm In a

Bag” is $149 and is available at o7 https://www.cominghome.com.f7 Maybe

it should be not-coming-home.com. Hmm.

To the college-bound students: organize. To the parents: buy some

extra facial tissue, but don’t worry, they’ll be back. And wait until

you see the bag of dirty laundry they’ll bring home.

* KAREN WIGHT is a Newport Beach resident. Her column runs Sundays.