Eau de Fraternité
First published in the Chicago Tribune
Over the weekend, I agreed to accompany Betsy as she went to pick up her son, Alan, from Beloit. He had just completed his second year of college, as well as his first year of living in a frat house. Helping him move out meant I needed to cross the threshold from the civilized world into the petri-dish perils of undergraduate housing.
Since my own graduation, I have done my best to purge from my memory what I like to call “eau de fraternité.” One step into the Phi Kappa Psi house, however, brought it all back in a single, pungent sniff. Beer, sweat, and urine seemed to emanate from the crumbling mortar holding every brick in place. Ah, the bouquet of college.
Despite the smell, we persevered, as moms on a mission do. There were moments of light-heartedness as we picked up a year’s worth of clothing from the floor and shoved it into duffels. In between treks up and down the sticky staircase, I took a moment to appreciate the décor. “Why doesn’t everyone have a ping-pong table in the dining room?” I asked, adding, “Isn’t it clever of the brothers to add decorating touches like three disassembled bikes, half a couch, three recycling bins, and a dart board? I just love what they’ve done with the place.”
After the piles of clothing got packed up, Betsy went to work with phase two of the move-out. She had arrived armed with a spray bottle of Clorox and four rolls of paper towels. Within two squirts, Alan said, “Hey, that smells good.” Given the fact that he had been living amid an assortment of throat lozenges half melted into the carpet, the powdered dust of not quite mixed microwave mac-n-cheese, and a haphazard assortment of well-worn gym clothes, it was worrisome to know that his sense of smell still worked.
For those wondering why a mom and an aunt were packing up a twenty-year-old college student, I feel compelled to point out a little detail. My nephew is blind. That doesn’t excuse his filthy room. Are you reading this Alan? It was a pigsty. But it does earn him an extra pass on packing up.
Surveying the emptied room, Betsy and I realized that all three of us had forgotten about the clothes in the closet. Grabbing the hanging clothes, Betsy occasionally asked Alan a few questions. “Is this your blue blazer? Are these your ties?”
“Yup,” replied Alan, and into the duffle they went. With a quick stop in the frat’s living room, we bid goodbye to the twelve moldy couches and the five guys drinking their morning beers. Sophomore year: done.
Back home, Betsy washed what could be washed, and took the rest to the dry cleaners to be mended and, when possible, sterilized. Just as she was working up a lather about the expense, Alan dropped this bomb. “My roommate just texted me and told me I took all of his clothes.”
Thus the column writes itself.
