Parenting, Hamster Balls and Hallway Grandmas: Unscrewing College Move-in Day

What happens when your kid finally leaves for college…but only moves 15 minutes down the road? Josh is still sick, Amanda is still emotional, and Muffy is using communal bathrooms. From hamster-ball personal protection systems to grandmas with flying sandals, the Wilsons unscrew the chaos of dorm move-in day. Equal parts parenting therapy session and ridiculous invention pitch meeting...Danny DeVito may or may not be involved.

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Transcript

Episode Introduction

Speaker 1 0:00

Familiar Wilson's Media Relationships are the story. You are made of meat, my friend, all the way down. The following podcast uses words like and and also. If you're not into any of that shit, then now's your chance.

Speaker 2 0:19

Three, two, one run.

Speaker 1 0:23

I'm super familiar with you, wilson, get it.

Speaker 2 0:32

Welcome to Super Familiar with the Wilsons. I'm Amanda.

Speaker 1 0:35

And I'm Josh.

Speaker 2 0:36

And Josh, are you still sick?

Speaker 1 0:38

I mean you can kind of hear it in my voice. I've still got something, a little bit of something, as I said in the intro to last week's thing, like I don't know what I have or had, and that's a little unnerving these days.

Speaker 2 0:51

I'm fairly certain that you had. I mean because you ran a pretty high fever, so I'm certain that you had something that nobody really wants you to have again. But yeah, your cough is sticking around. So I just wanted to check in. I missed everybody last week because I was out getting muffie ready to go to college. Well, muffie has been in college for the past two years. Even while she was in high school she was dual enrolled. But this is the first time that she is living away from home, so we moved her to the dorm on tuesday that we did and how are you feeling about that?

Speaker 2 1:22

I'm okay. I mean, I will say I'm incredibly privileged and incredibly lucky that she got into the university that's in our town, so she's about 15 minutes down the road. I have a colleague whose daughter is nine hours away. I mean, a lot of kids who didn't get into the university here went two hours away either direction, either up near Tallahassee or down to orlando. And we've we are just down the street. So I'm very, very fortunate, um and and thankful that she is still in town.

Speaker 1 1:55

But it's hard, it's still hard, but okay, but let's talk about that, though, because, like like I told her, she can come home and spend the night whenever she wants to.

Speaker 2 2:05

And she has.

Speaker 1 2:06

And she has. So what in your mind emotionally? Because you're like you have been like really upset, but she's just right there. I know, but it's, it's just like you know what it is. It's just like now. She has two, two rooms. She has two different locations to keep her shit.

Speaker 2 2:22

Yeah.

Speaker 1 2:22

Right, but otherwise what's?

Speaker 2 2:25

Because two different locations to keep her shit, yes, right, but otherwise, what's? Because I mean, it's the mark and you've been through this with the boys, so like you're a little bit like, okay, I've done this, but it's the beginning of things are changing, like it's not going to be that she lives with us forever.

Speaker 1 2:39

Now she might yeah, I was going to say we have like four years to live it up and then usually they come back like the passenger pigeon that all of a sudden remembers.

Speaker 2 2:49

Well, the boys haven't.

Speaker 1 2:50

Well, that's true. Well, they moved in together, though.

Speaker 2 2:52

See, that's the thing.

Speaker 1 2:53

They're two and a half years apart. They're very close. They moved in together, so you know. And also their situation is different because when I got divorced from their mother, like they would go back and forth- Together. Together, and so I think that for them they formed this little unit of them.

Speaker 2 3:13

Yeah.

Speaker 1 3:13

And they've told me that they were relieved to not to have to go back and forth. Like that's one of those things with getting remarried. And then there's kids that you have from a previous marriage is like those kids that are going from parent to parent like it kind of sucks for them.

Speaker 2 3:32

Yeah, it does.

Speaker 1 3:33

Because, like, oh, you know where's my Mr Zippy doll, oh, I left them at dad's house or whatever, and that just becomes just really annoying to them, and so they were happy to move out, just so that they can just have all of their stuff in one place.

Speaker 2 3:48

Yeah, well, and also when they went back and forth, they had each other. When Muffy's dad and I got divorced, she didn't have a sibling to go back and forth with her. So there's a little bit of separation anxiety and a little bit of separation anxiety and a little bit of of emotion around, uh, being separated, that the boys didn't necessarily have because they had each other. We tried, we got her some hamsters that would go back and forth, because we're like, well, here's what you can have, and then one hamster ate the other hamster, and it was really tragic.

Speaker 1 4:19

So like yes, and luckily with us, one of my sons hasn't eaten didn't eat the other one, right?

Speaker 2 4:24

That has not yet happened, right.

Speaker 1 4:26

And actually, interestingly enough, the oldest son, daniel. He's like moved out now.

Speaker 2 4:30

Yeah.

Speaker 1 4:30

It's like he has a partner and they've moved into their own place, and so Andrew is in their old place, the place they own together, yeah, so maybe he'll move back now. What do you think?

Speaker 2 4:45

I mean we've got room and and winthrop would be very happy.

Muffy Moving to College

Speaker 2 4:47

So this is it's also really hard on winthrop because he went through it with andrew. I think daniel moved out when winthrop was still maybe like 18 months old, but andrew lived with us until winthrop was you know three or four, and so he was aware when andrew moved out and missed him a whole bunch. Not that he didn't miss daniel, but it was the every day of Andrew being here, and so he knew what that absence felt like. And so when Muffy left on her first night in the dorm he started crying, but not like dramatically crying, like tearing up, which is more gut-wrenching because it's coming from a place of not drama, but like really feeling it and saying he didn't want her to be there. And so that's also been hard. And I think it's been hard on her that she's got a little brother here, because not just us, but it's a little brother and it's the dog, and so it's it's been it's I'm gonna break in right here and say that I'm happy to ship winthrop to have overnights at the dorm.

Speaker 1 5:43

I know, I know which by the way, dorm, college, dorm living very interesting Tiny rooms so tiny. Tiny rooms and if you've never had a sibling before that you've had to share a room with, it's like a really awkward experience for 17, 18, 19 year olds to go and their first experience having a roommate is like they basically cannot be in the room without breathing on them yeah that has got to be so awkward though yeah, and I don't know like.

Speaker 2 6:10

I think that, yeah, I mean muffie's roommate's super nice, but they don't have the same schedule and they're not really in the room very often and so that's probably like except to sleep, and that's the weird yeah, because you're like you could reach out and touch the person right. You know, and that's the weird thing.

Speaker 1 6:24

Yeah, because you're like you could reach out and touch the person, right? No, okay, that's weird. No, it's just that like I don't think I could get comfortable in a room with people that I don't really know in close quarters and I got to go to sleep.

Speaker 2 6:36

Okay, whatever friend you were at camp for, like ever.

Speaker 1 6:40

Well, yeah, but oh yeah, I guess that's true.

Speaker 2 6:42

See, that's what I'm saying. I also did not have a you and I did not share rooms when we were growing up, because we didn't have siblings close to our age or siblings, and my first experience sharing a room with somebody in a bed near me was working at camp.

Speaker 1 6:56

Well, yeah, but at camp you've got the counselor in there. Like to protect you from the other person being a jackass or whatever.

Speaker 2 7:01

No, but see for me, because I worked at a boys camp. We slept in the women's dorm and it was just three of us in a room okay, but you were an adult, adult, right, you were like I was 19, oh, were you okay, well fine, whatever.

Speaker 1 7:12

So, apparently, like you have better insight into this than I do, because I've I've never done it in this way yeah, and I will say she's, I she's adjusting really well to communal showers.

Speaker 2 7:23

I didn't think she was going to. I thought when she first I'm not saying she showers with people, but I'm saying showering in like a communal bathroom. Now in the bathroom there's the shower and the shower curtain and then like a dressing area and then a door, so it's like not just you get out of the shower curtain, then that's nothing.

Speaker 1 7:42

That's just like tiny showers, tiny separate showers.

Speaker 2 7:44

Right, no, but I was appreciative that. I was surprised that it was like that, because the only communal showers I've been exposed to that sounds weird that I've experienced have been at camp and it's just like shower curtain and you're out where the sink and everything is.

Speaker 1 7:59

I went to camp in the 80s.

Speaker 2 8:01

And no curtains.

Speaker 1 8:02

No curtains, just like here we have a wall of shower heads, a wall of shower heads and it's like you know, okay, let the let the pigs in and hose them down. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 8:11

it was so well, but you weren't sharing a shower head, like you had your own shower heads, right?

Speaker 1 8:16

I know, but they were really close yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 8:18

I've never done that.

Speaker 1 8:19

I've only ever had like tiny little showers with I wanted to have, like I wanted everyone to have, like horse blinders or at least I did, because I didn't want to, you know sometimes look over and see things yeah, no, no, I don't want to see things. I already. You should already see enough things, because, just like you go as an adult, you go to the gym and you know people are apparently very comfortable walking around with their junk hanging out. It's even more awkward when you're a teenager.

Speaker 2 8:44

So I had forgotten about this, but now you said this. So in my mid-30s I had a gym membership and I used to go every day and I would not shower there because I'd just go home and I didn't go from there to work or anything. The people who walked around naked in the women's changing room were always the old women. I guess by then they're just like.

Speaker 1 9:05

F? It changing room were always the old women. I guess by then they're just like oh, they don't, I don't care, they don't care. Listen, that is actually a level of I don't care about the world that I aspire to yeah I am not there, right there. Oh, I'm creeping closer to it every day, as evidenced by my wardrobe choices and your aching joints but I am not yet to the point where I can just walk around naked in front of people.

Speaker 2 9:25

It's not a thing.

Speaker 1 9:25

It's not a thing. Pay me, pay me lots of money I don't think anybody needs and then I will. I will what?

Speaker 2 9:31

No one needs that, onlyfans.

Speaker 1 9:33

No one would pay for. That is what you're saying.

Speaker 2 9:35

I mean maybe Dan Belson.

Speaker 1 9:38

You just killed this segment, did I really?

Speaker 2 9:40

Because I made you think about Dan Belson.

Speaker 1 9:41

No, I think you made me think about Dan Belson paying for nude pictures of me.

Speaker 2 9:46

Anyway. So I was really convinced that she said before she moved in I'm going to try to shower at home as much as possible. I thought the child was going to come home every day to shower. Now she hasn't. She has been showering at the dorm, super proud of her, because she is. She's an introvert and socializing is, you know, it takes effort. She's been going to yoga classes, she's been going to extra, you know. She's made friends, she's been going to things. So it's been good but it's also been hard. But just the whole process of moving a kid in in town was a schlog. I can't remember that. I mean, I can't remember.

Speaker 1 10:20

A schlog.

Speaker 2 10:22

Slog.

Speaker 1 10:23

Slog. I think that you just mixed Schlong. Schlong. That's a different. Onlyfans, okay Slogs.

Speaker 2 10:32

It was difficult.

Speaker 1 10:36

You can't even say it was hard, because again we're talking no it was manual labor.

Speaker 2 10:39

Does that make it any better? I don't know. Anyway, in town and we still needed two cars Like I can't imagine these people who have to move their children do they just rent U-Hauls? What do they do?

Speaker 1 10:52

I don't know. It is a problem that people have, and speaking of problems that people have moving their kids into their freshman dorm we're going to resurrect a bit here that we've done before. We actually had, at at one point, an entire podcast called Unscrew it Up, and I actually love doing that.

Speaker 2 11:10

I don't remember why we stopped doing it, because it's just hard to do two of these a week.

Tiny Dorm Rooms and Roommate Challenges

Speaker 1 11:14

Yeah. So the premise behind Unscrew it Up was differently twisted solutions to life's little problems, and every week we would address a thing and then come up with solutions. So we're going to do that for this subject. The subject is moving your kid into a college dorm, and now the Wilsons will unscrew it up. Moving your kids into college yes, that's right. It is that time of year and it presents itself with lots of difficulties that we've just gone through. Moving Muffy to college.

Speaker 2 11:54

And it should be said that these, at least mine, are specific to moving your kid into a dorm. I understand that moving your kid into an apartment would be a bit different and nuanced, right, but this is dorm living to an apartment would be a bit different and nuanced, right, but this is dorm living.

Speaker 1 12:11

So what we do with this is that we each present a certain problem and then our proposed solution to it, and I have, I think, five that I do. How many do you have?

Speaker 2 12:17

Two, three, I have five.

Speaker 1 12:19

Okay, so what we do is we talk about these things and then we narrow our list down to five. We talk about these things and then we narrow our list down to five and then we submit our list to a person or organization so that they can give feet to our ideas. We're kind of the-.

Speaker 2 12:33

We're R&A.

Speaker 1 12:34

Right, we're research, r&d. Right, well, we're R, and then someone else is going to be.

Speaker 2 12:39

D, what is A?

Speaker 1 12:41

I don't know. This week we're going to come up with our five top solutions to problems moving kids into dorms and we're going to put them all into an email and we're going to send them off to Danny DeVito to address?

Speaker 2 12:55

Does he have special talents in this area?

Speaker 1 12:58

Well, he's a little guy.

Speaker 2 13:00

Yeah.

Speaker 1 13:00

So I think he could pass Like if he needs to go in and pretend to be like a college student. He can pass and he's pretty cool, and so he can go in and he's got this. Look about him. You're looking at me like I've got three heads.

Speaker 2 13:14

Because he looks like he's 70, just in a small, tiny little body.

Speaker 1 13:17

Okay, well, he's cute, kind of like Baby Yoda, okay.

Speaker 2 13:20

He'll break down walls. He can be like a mascot, so on with it.

Speaker 1 13:22

Now, amanda, what is your first problem that you've identified and your first solution?

Speaker 2 13:28

Well, before I get into my first one, let me say this that I think that the university here actually really had it down like directing traffic, scheduling appointments. You had to come at your appointment time. You could not come before. If you came after, you had to wait until after five o'clock. They had people helping. We pulled up, they had a team of students I'm assuming they paid these people because this would not be great volunteer work. They had three big carts and they unpacked my car within a matter of maybe three minutes and then they took Muffy, went in to get her key, and then she took them in the elevator and they went up and they, you know, unloaded everything in the room. This is fabulous. The problem is, once they leave, it is a mess and it takes hours to put it together. So my solution is they stay and they transition from movers to decorators.

Speaker 1 14:21

Okay. So what you're saying is that they need to take their system where they had people move the kids from the cars and then transition into a personal staff. Is this like open-ended, or do they have this personal staff for only a certain?

Speaker 2 14:39

number. No, this is like Queer Eye for the Dorm, but just like just the. What's his name? The one, jeremiah? Yeah, it's just like jeremiah for about an hour, because I've never heard you curse so much as when you were trying to adjust the bed and put the bed skirt on.

Speaker 1 14:54

So, like we need, we need to outsource this I don't know how they're going to staff that, um, but okay, sure, personal staff for about an hour.

Speaker 2 15:03

Wouldn't you have appreciated that more than having to do it?

Speaker 1 15:06

Oh, I would, but I also. Had I thought about it, I would have just hired people to do that. I didn't. That didn't even occur to me. It's one of those things. We helped a friend of mine, Jason, who's moving back into town, move into his house yesterday and he had a pod out on the street and we unpacked this pod and this pod, like it, looked like a smaller pod.

Speaker 2 15:25

It was deceptive because when I dropped you off, you're like this won't take long.

Speaker 1 15:28

Bigger on the inside. It took us four hours to unpack this. Mike O'Malley Professor. Mike O'Malley was there and he said a very wise thing. He said you know, I've reached that point in my life where I realized that there's much more value in hiring people to move your stuff than moving your own stuff. Yes, and I could not agree with him more so had I thought about that.

Speaker 2 15:53

I absolutely would have gone, hired someone. Now I don't know where the labor pool is for that. I think there is. Muffy was telling me that there are people who hire people to settle them in, but also like decorator, interior designers. I don't need interior designers. She did fine on her own.

Speaker 1 16:09

I just need these people to put like the bed together and put the rug down and hang the stuff up on the wall. Oh, very good. Okay, so that's your first one, a personal staff for an hour. Mine has more to do with the kids settling into life, like maybe that first week, because you move in and immediately obviously you've got to get your schedule, you've got to go to classes. She moved in and then a couple days later, boom, first class and then you're off. So I understand that, especially if you don't have the parents around, it's going to be difficult for you to set that wake-up schedule. Son Andrew was telling me that he was late for work the other day. He was supposed to wake up at nine with his alarm and he had to work at 10. He woke up at 11.

Speaker 2 16:47

Oh no, had they not called him saying where are you?

Speaker 1 16:49

No well, I mean this pizza joint. They don't do stuff like that, they just get on with it because they're staffed mostly by college age kids and whatever. But not the point. The point is, he said, for the first time in his life he realized that what happened was from nine to like 10 or 11,. Whenever he woke up, he just continually pressed the snooze button. And wasn't conscious that he was doing it, and did not know, and he had to press it like 12 times, yeah, and he was blown away.

Speaker 2 17:20

Yeah.

Speaker 1 17:20

So even alarms aren't always effective. So my solution is this For that first week or first couple of weeks, you have your bed on a timer and so it's not. You can't snooze this timer. The timer goes off and the bed pops you out of the bed, kind of like that.

Speaker 1 17:38

You remember that game we played as a kid called Perfection, yeah, where you had you put the, the little thing on, we have that here winter past, yeah, yeah so the the the thing is on a timer and you have to place all of the pieces on there and if you don't place all the pieces on there after a certain amount of time they all pop off. Well, I'm saying, take the pop off part of that technology, pop that kid's ass out of the bed at 9 am and they will absolutely like get used to that and that will be their new routine well, I will say I'm very impressed because Muffy has been waking herself up, which is fabulous, because I needed the pop-off to pop up technology.

Speaker 2 18:13

When she lived here she wouldn't get out of bed but, um, her bed is seven feet in the air, or six feet or whatever, so popping is absolutely not seven feet.

Speaker 1 18:22

It does. It's the. The bed is shorter than I am and I'm six foot, so it's probably five foot off. It's not seven feet. In the air she's.

Speaker 2 18:31

She can't roll over and there's the ceiling it's not like she's on a submarine you'll understand that I'm short, so everything looks taller to me, right? Yes um, but I think, I still think the popping up technology would not not be good. It would.

Speaker 1 18:45

She would break something, I'm sure I mean, we learn through pain sometimes what's what's, what's your next thing all right.

Speaker 2 18:52

One of the hard things is is just taking a chance on a roommate, right like you you meet. You either do it by randomness and the university matches you up when they do things like have you fill out a form saying you know, this is the kind of person, not like. I am a night person, I'm a morning person, I'm clean, I'm not whatever.

Speaker 1 19:09

I'm clean or I am not, like I'm tidy. Who puts that I'm not clean?

Speaker 2 19:13

I'm not tidy Like tidiness is not a priority for me, whatever I don, although that could be a problem- Could, you imagine if you had a roommate who didn't shower?

Speaker 1 19:21

I'm quite certain that happens.

Speaker 2 19:22

Okay, so anyway. But finding a roommate is difficult, just randomness. Or even when you connect with somebody, now they all do it via social media and they start chatting with each other on Instagram or whatever Still difficult. I propose we engage some of the Harry Potter magicness and we need a sorting hat for these children.

Speaker 1 19:45

Okay so.

Speaker 2 19:47

They need to roll up. On the day that they're supposed to move in, they get the sorting hat, or like they put their hand on something and it does some bio scanning or whatever, and then it says you are like, oh, I just made it, yoda.

Moving Your Kid to College Problems

Speaker 2 20:02

I don't know what's happening I was trying to be the sorting hat, but I'm now I mean, maybe yoda decides, I don't know and then they say you know, and it's not just that, it's not just the roommate, but it's also like you, like sorting houses, like you should be in the social dorm, you should be in the study dorm, you should be in the like whatever dorm. I, because it, it's. It's kind of a you, you leave everything to chance. So we need some sort of sorting technology that will assign rooms.

Speaker 1 20:27

Okay, when I said that we were going to do this segment, I had two stipulations. Do you remember what they?

Speaker 2 20:35

were, you said no AI, no AI and no drones, no drones. Neither one of those are AI or drones.

Speaker 1 20:39

I didn't think that I need to say no, non-existent magic.

Speaker 2 20:43

Okay, well, you know what that means, that I think outside of the box and therefore, when you dare to dream, you can reach the stars.

Speaker 1 20:53

Okay, you know, as I'm thinking about it, these dorm rooms are really really small. All the kids need these rooms for is to sleep right and keep their clothes. I think they need to to offer an option for kids who really don't want to have roommates, but understanding that there's only so much room and you can't give everyone an individual room flat share or like a bed share.

Speaker 2 21:19

Is this what you're gonna say?

Speaker 1 21:20

no, I don't know what a bed share is. Okay, go ahead. What's a bed share?

Speaker 2 21:23

like where you you you share a room and or a bed with somebody, but you have shifts oh, oh, I don't know it works more like if you like if, like med students, do it where, like one has a night shift and one has a day shift I'm.

Speaker 1 21:37

I mean the college would have to radically change how it is that they have teaching schedule no, I going to say offer like those micro rooms, like they have in Japan.

Speaker 1 21:47

Oh, the little hotel rooms, like the little pods, yeah, yeah, yeah like little pods and they could be slightly larger than a little pod even if we took the dorm room that Muffy has right, split that sucker down the middle and it would be like half the size and already it's not big. But you'd have your privacy and you wouldn't have to deal with a roommate. They have those.

Speaker 2 22:06

They're called single dorms, single rooms.

Speaker 1 22:09

Oh.

Speaker 2 22:10

They make single rooms. They're more expensive and I think people want to have like I know Muffy was wanting to have, you know the experience of getting to know someone and becoming close with the roommate. So I'm saying that's why we need this sorting hat. Or, you know, like the who's the what's its personality test, what's the person who does the?

Speaker 1 22:30

Myers-Briggs.

Speaker 2 22:31

We need something to connect these. We can't leave it to Instagram. We can't.

Speaker 1 22:35

And that's how she did it. Right, she did Instagram. Yeah, yeah, again, we're not saying anything about Muffy's.

Speaker 2 22:40

No, no, no, no. I'm talking about the process in general.

Speaker 1 22:43

I actually think that the idea of having personality tests or whatever is really smart.

Speaker 2 22:48

Okay, so is that one more acceptable than my sorting hat?

Speaker 1 22:51

I would think that things that actually exist. I mean, I understand that this is a slightly comedy-tinged podcast, but we've stepped over a line when we're relying on JK Rowling.

Speaker 2 23:01

Do your Enneagram, do your Myers-Briggs, do whatever your number or numerology is, I don't care, do something.

Speaker 1 23:10

I think that the college should offer a discount, some sort of housing or rooming discount for kids who choose to go that route. They go through more testing and more assessment because you're going to have a better dorm experience like that.

Speaker 2 23:25

And less drama that they have to deal with later.

Speaker 1 23:28

That they have to deal with or RAs have to deal with. Let's say, you have an entire wing of people who have actually gone through this process and have decided, you know that's going to be the dorm that everyone wants to get into.

Speaker 1 23:37

Yeah, yeah, all right, good, glad I made this better for you yeah, all right, all right, good, glad I made this better for you. All right. My next thing how do you know that your kid is settling in and going to the first few sessions of class and doing the things that they need to do without you being there?

Speaker 2 23:54

I've intentionally not woken her up or texted her anything this week to say did you go to class, did you get up?

Speaker 1 24:01

and she's done it yes, well, that's very good, but in general, especially for for parents who really worry about their kids and and their kids aren't necessarily texting back or or whatever like how do you know that that they're doing what they need to do? You check their location on your phone yeah, that's the worst thing ever invented for us don't look, you do it too I do.

Speaker 1 24:21

I do it because I can, you know, and it's. It's one of those things where, like, I'll wake up at 11 30 at night and I'll look and I'll make sure that that she's in her dorm or going to class or being in the gym or whatever. One of my favorite things to do or it used to be, I don't do it as much anymore is to look at the um monterey Bay Aquarium, penguin Cam.

Speaker 2 24:41

Okay, I don't think we can have a cam that is in their rooms or the bathrooms.

Speaker 1 24:48

Well, I don't want it to be in the bathroom.

Speaker 2 24:50

What's wrong with?

Speaker 1 24:50

you? No, but the idea of, for the first couple weeks, until we're certain that they settle in, and this is something everyone agrees to have a student cam at least in the classes. Right, I don't need it to be in the dorm room, um, but at least in the classes so we can just look and we don't need to hear anything. See, oh, they're in class, they made it, they're fine, I can turn it off, um okay, I like this classroom dorm.

Speaker 2 25:14

Yeah, our classroom camera yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 25:16

So so again, uh, kind of like the penguin cam less water, right, less frolicking and swimming but one would hope just some sort of some sort of like the penguin cam. Less water, right. Less frolicking and swimming, one would hope, but just some sort of like student cam so I can make sure that they're okay.

Speaker 2 25:30

Okay. So mine addresses that kind of downtime before classes start and when you move in. So move in was the weekend before and classes started on a Thursday, for whatever reason. Muffy got a Tuesday move-in appointment and I don't know if they look and say, do people live in town? Are they not coming from out? It's like how they assign this. We got a Tuesday. It was much better because it was not nearly as busy as it was on the day that you know the weekend that everybody moved in but there's still downtime, right. So you got to fill it. You got to. You know you got to fill it. You got to. You know you got to meet people. You're not going to classes yet they have RAs.

Speaker 2 26:10

Every floor has a resident advisor. It's an older student who then is kind of like the dorm mom or whatever for that floor. Her RA is great, but her RA has, you know, a hall full of people to try to, you know to support, and I don't even know that she was back yet. And so I'm suggesting that we need move-in buddies that are not the RA. But it's kind of like I don't know if you guys did this at camp, where you would pair like an older camper with a younger camper to help them sort of with homesickness.

Speaker 2 26:33

Sure, this is what I'm suggesting. You need a move-in buddy. It's not somebody who helps you unpack or do any of that. That's the personal staff we're going to hire for an hour. But this is somebody who's just like hey, I'm your point person, we have them at work. When somebody's onboarded, we give you a here's your person, you reach out to them, you meet with them if you have questions. So I think it would be advantageous to have move-in buddies so they do this. When you rush a sorority or fraternity, you get a big brother or a big sister right. Sorority life is not for Muffy, sorority life is not for 50% of the kids or fraternity life. But I still think that having somebody who's been assigned to you so you don't have to go find them, you don't feel like you're bothering them by asking them to do this for you, like they volunteered to do this, I think this would really be helpful.

Speaker 1 27:24

In addition to all that, in addition to an RA, they should have hallway grandmothers.

Speaker 2 27:31

Oh God, could you imagine so great too, because, like they could make sourdough bread with you and teach you how to crochet. I love this idea.

Speaker 1 27:40

There are so many retirees who are up for, you know, helping out, want to do something. This is the perfect situation. I'm not saying necessarily they need to live on campus. I don't know how that would work. You know you have students out in the hallway at 1.30 in the morning and grandma comes out without her teeth, shaking her cane, saying you know, you need to be quiet, I need to get my rest, but you know, you need to be quiet, I need to get my rest, but hallway grandmas would be so delightful now.

Speaker 2 28:07

Would you have hallway grandmas on the boys side too?

Speaker 1 28:08

yes, to keep them in line, not grandpas no, no, no, no, no, no because the grant. Listen, I'm going to be one of those real soon and I'm not going to want to mess with anybody. I will be out there, no teeth, with my cane saying you know, get off my lawn yeah nope, grandmas, that's what you want.

Speaker 2 28:22

You want hallway grandmas I think this is a great idea okay, my next thing physical safety yes, yes especially, you know, going out at night, being out all hours of the night.

Speaker 1 28:37

They're gonna do what they're gonna do, right and you just gotta that they're going to make the right decisions and they're not going to put themselves in a dangerous situation. However, some situations are unavoidable. I think we need to have some sort of personal protection system that can either be triggered by the student or automatically be triggered when certain conditions are met.

Speaker 2 29:00

Okay, we do have a personal protection thing for muffy. It's uh, it's called a birdie alarm. That, um, I had bought her when she first started going to the community college for her dual enrollment and I just reminded her of it and she's got to put it on her keychain. But you pull it and it makes this ear pain bleeding, bleeding, high-pitched alarm that will just go off and off and off. Now they make them where it will also call 911 for you but you have to have a monthly subscription for it and we don't have that. But she does have a personal alarm.

Speaker 1 29:34

That's great.

Speaker 2 29:35

Not what I'm talking about, though I know I'm just letting people know that we do have some sort of responsible parenting happening.

Speaker 1 29:41

At the onset of any questionable or dangerous situation, a giant hamster ball inflates around the child.

Speaker 2 29:51

I love how you got on me about the sorting hat, yet you somehow think that we're going to be able to Danny DeVito is going to be able to create the technology that this child carries around a hamster ball that then inflates with them.

Solutions: Personal Staff and Personality Tests

Speaker 1 30:06

Listen. Everything, all the technology is getting smaller now, right, listen. By the way, on this pod on the Unscrewed Up podcast, one of our early episodes, I suggested a personal car wash a car wash that you can get into and it would scrub you and take care of you. They have invented that in Japan. I saw the newspaper article yesterday, in fact, and I was so excited because this means that we are the Wilsons. We are on the bleeding edge of research and technology and coming up with new ideas. In fact, I need to contact this company in Japan and make sure they haven't stolen my idea. So, personal protection balls for for students. Well, we'll come up with a different name, but the idea is just like a cod piece that inflates.

Speaker 1 30:51

No, the idea is unwanted advances a thing of the past as soon as things get creepy, a button is pressed, the hamster ball inflates very quickly and the person goes shooting onto the side and your child is protected. They get themselves into a situation where they've gone to a party and maybe they've had beverages that they shouldn't have which is going to happen but you want them just to be safe. Imagine like you're in your dorm, it's 1 am in the morning, your roommate's not there. You know that there was a party. You look out the window on the quad and rolling around gently in the moonlight are dozens of hamster balls filled with students who may or may not be conscious, but they are safe, they're safe.

Speaker 1 31:38

And this is what I'm going for here Personal protection in the way of giant inflatable hamster balls. Put it down.

Speaker 2 31:44

All right, I like it.

Speaker 1 31:46

All right, what's your next thing? So?

Speaker 2 31:47

my next thing is also about the transition and having a hard time and missing home or feeling like you don't know anybody or you don't have any friends. My suggestion is you know how in? I don't know if you've seen this, but in airports they have emotional support dogs for people who are afraid of flying.

Speaker 1 32:05

Sure.

Speaker 2 32:06

So they can just go and sit and pet the dog. Yeah, I think that we need emotional support animals available on move-in day, like they have in the airports, for both kids and parents. Right, it's hard on parents, it's hard on the kids. Every floor dogs are not your thing, then get an emotional support capybara. I don't know Whatever it is that people would want to hang out with and pet and love. Now I will say Muffy's RA has a kitten and it must be an emotional support cat because I don't know how it's being allowed in the dorm and don't go tell anybody because I love it, so don't go report it. And the RA has said anytime you need, just text me. She loves cuddles and that's great, but it wasn't there on move-in day.

Speaker 1 32:54

Right.

Speaker 2 32:55

So we need a move-in day support animal.

Speaker 1 32:59

Okay, all right, I'm down with that. And that actually ties into my next idea, a little bit Communicating with your child. It's all well and good that we have all this technology to connect with our children, but if they don't answer back your text, then what's the point?

Speaker 2 33:13

Right.

Speaker 1 33:15

I think that we need to utilize good, old-fashioned animals to help us with this situation. Back in World War II, they used dogs to carry messages from trench to trench.

Speaker 2 33:32

Like St Bernard's with their barrels.

Speaker 1 33:33

No, no, that's delivering alcohol from peak to peak. No, they would have these dogs and they're very dependable and they knew what they were doing. They would go back and forth taking messages from the colonels to the generals, to the captains, to the privates, to the generals, to the captains, to the privates. And that's really such a great system, because the dog is going to go, the dog is going to find your child and the dog is going to bark until your child reads the message.

Speaker 1 33:59

that's around the dog's neck and then takes the little pen that's there and responds to it and sends the dog on its way. If we know anything about dogs, it's that they want to accomplish their mission. They want to please you. Your kid is not getting away from this dog. Your kid is going to answer your message because this dog is going to come, run from home, get the, deliver your message. Get the message and run back home okay, perfect this right.

Speaker 2 34:24

except for what about kids who go, like, on opposite coast of the country or, you know, nine away, even two hours away? This dog is not going to run down the interstate.

Speaker 1 34:33

Well then, maybe what needs to happen is that we need to have a dog communication annex office at each university. Right, you give your, you send your message to this annex office, the person there attaches the message to the dog, and then that dog goes out and finds your kid on the campus and then comes back. That's even better, actually, because I would do that rather than have the dog run to and fro even across town, but using dogs that are actual creatures that you cannot snooze or that you cannot turn off to deliver messages and to get messages back Perfect messaging system.

Student Monitoring and Emotional Support

Speaker 1 35:09

I don't trust pigeons because they could hit a tower or whatever and they messages. And to get messages back perfect messaging system. I don't trust pigeons because you know they could hit a tower or or whatever and they're shifty. Anyway they got their.

Speaker 2 35:15

I was gonna suggest carrier pigeons, but you clearly already thought about this no, the dog communication annex office on each college campus.

Speaker 1 35:23

There you go, I've morphed my idea into I like it is that your last one it is all right.

Speaker 2 35:28

well, I've got one last, and this just has to do with just the day of and all of the stress that's going along with it. And you know we were in the room, we were moving things around and the roommate, you know she left because nobody wants to be in the middle of all that.

Speaker 1 35:43

Well, it's not enough room for all of us.

Speaker 2 35:45

And you kept taking the trash out back and forth. If anything they could do to lighten the load for me, catered lunch, it's not hard, set it up in the common space and then, because you know they have the, the hallways that go one way and the other it's like the boys hall in this way and the girls hall this way, and then they've got like a kitchen, like common area, just catered lunch. I work for this university. I know all of the things that can cater for them. We pay you enough money in housing fees. Just cater the damn lunch on move-in day. That's all Because we were left. We had not eaten. Our appointment was at nine in the morning. We left home at 8.30. Now I had made pancakes for the kids because you took Winthrop to school and Muffy ate the pancakes. I didn't eat. I don't know if you ate. And then we were done at like 2.30 and I had not eaten and I was uber grumpy and hungry.

Speaker 1 36:38

Yes, you were.

Speaker 2 36:39

Catered lunch.

Speaker 1 36:41

I feel like most things in society would be much better if there was a catered lunch.

Speaker 1 36:46

Okay, so shall I read back all of our things and then we take it in turns to pick one that we like until we get five. Okay, so this is what we have by way of reminder personal staff for an hour after move-in pop-up mechanism on your bed that will shoot you out of your bed so you you can set your bed schedule. A roommate finder in lieu of a sorting hat, like assessments, like INTP and all that stuff. Student cam I'm going to go ahead and scratch that one out because that one sounds pretty creepy and it's not meant to. So no more penguin cam idea. I'm getting rid of that one. Dorm grandmother. A move-in buddy, a giant hamster ball protection system. Emotional support animals, trench dogs to deliver messages and catered lunch. Wowzers Okay, you get to pick one.

Speaker 2 37:40

My first one is personal staff for an hour, because I think that takes a lot of stress off of. Like you're already stressed, the emotions are already running high and you don't want to be fighting with each other over like where this bed's gonna get lofted to and where how to make that thing stick to the wall yeah, yeah, okay, very good.

Speaker 1 37:58

Um, my thing, I think, is I'm gonna go for the dorm, grandmother I love this idea because that takes you not even through the first week.

Speaker 2 38:07

It takes you through the entire semester and grandmother needs to have all the parents' phone numbers. Can you imagine the lift of the stress off of the parents? Because you know, when I used to take Muffy to stay with my mom I didn't worry as much, right, because I knew my mom had it Like I was, like you know, when I would travel and she would Muffy Weep by my mom. Mom's going to call me if something's wrong, like, and your child may not necessarily call you, but dorm grandma going to call you.

Speaker 1 38:38

I'm going to make this even more specific the dorm grandma has to be a Cuban mama from Hialeah. I'm from Miami, yeah, and if there's anything, I know that throughout Hialeah they do not have crime watch. They have, like the team of abuelas that can find out all of the information, right? So I'm going to say Cuban grandma, dorm grandma.

Speaker 2 39:00

Do Cuban grandmas also throw their sandals at you, the chicleta?

Speaker 1 39:03

Chancleta, chancleta, do they do that? Yeah, yeah, that's all I need If you're bad. Yes, that's for the boys' hall. All right, go ahead.

Speaker 2 39:10

I don't think it's realistic, but I think that the personal protection bubble would bring me a lot of comfort as well. It's up to Danny DeVito to figure out how to do it, but that's my next one.

Speaker 1 39:21

I think the hamster ball also, as soon as it's activated like a camera, goes on that you can know what's happening.

Speaker 2 39:28

Can we just have it call the police, or like the non-emergency number or something?

Speaker 1 39:32

Well, yeah, but don't you want to know as well?

Speaker 2 39:34

Yeah, Well, I mean the university already has an alert system where I get text messages all the time in the middle of the night when somebody's bike is stolen. So they can just integrate this into the text message, but just send it to me.

Speaker 1 39:48

I'm going to, for my thing, this into the text message, but just send it to me. I'm going to, for my thing. I'm going to combine two of the ideas to make one idea. We have emotional support dog and these trench communication dogs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Double, duty Same dogs, same dogs. Yeah, yes, but it's important for me to be able to reach my kid, and I feel like the only way I can be assured to reach my kid is if there's a dog hunting him down I mean they're trackers.

Speaker 2 40:12

Right, we got to get the ones that are trackers.

Speaker 1 40:13

No, I think they are all trackers.

Speaker 2 40:14

Yeah not sure that um the podcast pup here would be able to do this, because he'd get distracted by something and then gone he's useless.

Speaker 1 40:22

All right, what's your last? This is the last one.

Speaker 2 40:24

You get the last pick all right, I gotta pull the list back up, though. So well, you I? I was going to say emotional support dogs, but you've already done that. Um, all right, catered lunch. Just feed me, Diana DeVito.

Speaker 1 40:36

Catered lunch. This, now, is what a college move in is going to look like this. These are the suggestions that we are forwarding on personal staff uh, for an hour to meet and set up and apparently you want them to be somehow affiliated with Queer Eye, fine Dorm Abuela, getting all the tea and handing out all of the advice, but also hitting people with sandals, dogs available for emotional support, but also to track your kids down, the personal protective device, a giant inflatable hamster ball and, of course, catered lunch. So I would say that for this topic, it is Unscrewed.

Speaker 1 41:23

All right, Amanda, that's all there is. There is no more. What did you think about us returning to the Unscrew it Up format?

Speaker 2 41:29

I really enjoyed that. Let us know, dear listener, if you enjoyed that and if that's a thing that you want to see revisited throughout this little podcast that we're doing here, called Super Familiar with the Wilsons. You can email us at familiarwilsons at gmailcom.

Speaker 1 41:44

All right. Well, we would like to thank the whole list of people that we usually thank. I don't have the list in front of me and I don't want to you.

Speaker 2 41:50

all know them.

Speaker 1 41:50

I don't want to try to say it from memory, because I'll leave someone out.

Speaker 2 41:53

Let me do this.

Speaker 1 41:54

Joey, yes, thank you. Until next week, take it easy and hold your loved ones close. Treasure each and every hour, every day that you get to spend with them.

Speaker 2 42:05

And go be kind.

Speaker 1 42:06

Bye, bye, bye, thank you.