How to Scare Your Mom In 3 Easy Steps

Yesterday I traveled from coast to coast over the course of 12 hours, 4 time zones, 2 planes, a car, a bus, a subway and 2 taxicabs. I carried approximately 120 pounds of luggage across jetways, onto a sticky bus, through unforgiving Metrotrain doors, between curious crowds of pedestrians and up a nasty flight of stairs to my Georgetown apartment. It's this ancient little abode, victim to a few colonies of ants and a general lack of color, with a cavernous living room and a few cozy little rooms. I think I'm going to like it.

On my way there, though, I realized an easy way to throw a parent into paranoia:

1. Call her at the Baltimore airport and promise to call again once you safely arrive at the apartment after a 2 1/2 hour stint on mass transit.

2. Find out the phone is dead, thus omitting the latter part of step 1.

3. Then call her...six hours later.

I think I pretty much gave my mom a heart attack when I didn't call her last night, as evidenced by multiple missed calls, texts, and messages from program directors. But while she was picturing me in a Chandra-Levy-like state, in a pool of blood in the dark recesses of a subway station, I was strolling along with my new roommates through a cheery section of old-town Georgetown on a lengthy trip to the grocery store. Along the way (it was about a 2 hour round trip) I got to know my roommates a little better and we got a little help from some new guy-friends. The boys all happened to be from the South, and were obliged to show a little southern chivalry by carrying our grocery bags. It was a fun way to spend a Saturday night.

But I'm pretty sure I'll be starving this summer. Or at best, I'll have a mild to moderate case of scurvy. I'm totally new to this fend-for-yourself thing, and I'm going to see how long a loaf of bread, PB & J and some Honey Bunches of Oats will last me.

If the first day is any indication, this is going to be an incredible summer. My roommates are great and the campus is gorgeous and there's so much to see. Let's just hope I'll be this optimistic once that Econ class starts...