Home sweet home

Hi, I want to place a delivery order to Colt Street in Pennington."\n"Sorry, we don't deliver there."\n"It's only 10 minutes away!"\n"Sorry, miss."\n"I'll give you 20 dollars! I want one plain…"\n"Miss, I'm sorry, but it's out of our delivery range, and --"\n"Fine! Make it 50 dollars! This is crazy! Now I want one plain…"\n"Miss, we don't deliver outside five miles, and no amount of money will change that."\n"Why don't you just put me on the phone with your delivery boy; I BET HE WILL SAY OTHERWISE!"\nClick. Sure, I overreacted, but anyone else who has experienced Bloomington withdrawal upon returning home knows what it's like. This struggle goes far beyond delivery woes.\nIt starts with the time-zone change; the transition from CST (college student time) to PST (parent-stunted time). In college, barging in a sleeping person's room at eight in the morning could very well provoke an assault. At home, my mom thinks nothing of it. Putting away blankets, vacuuming, chatting about the dog's eating habits -- all maternally acceptable reasons to rouse me from sleep.\nMy dad will wake me just for the purpose of waking me. "Time to get up!" he'll bellow. I'll awake, thinking I'm late for work, the house is on fire, etc., only to find out that it's 9 a.m. on a Sunday.\n"We don't want to sleep the whole day away, do we?" Well, maybe we don't, but I sure don't have a problem with it.\nParental adjustments don't end there. The unfamiliar term "chores" (it also goes by the more philanthropic alias "help around the house") rears its ugly head not too long after the return home. One day, you are on your way out of the house, minding your own business, when you hear, "Oh, would you mind taking the trash out with you?" \nHarmless enough, you grab the trash bag, toss it, and are on your way. That trash request all too soon becomes a list including dish-washing, deck-staining, furniture-moving, and on and on and on. At age six I requested a younger brother for a reason -- so thirteen years later there would be two free hands to "help around the house" that weren't mine.\nSiblings are another post-college adjustment. Somehow, the 13-year-old weasel linked to me by blood convinced my father that he should get to ride in the front seat of the car. So there I am, an adult college student with driver's license, riding in the back seat, while my brother -- who had yet to reach puberty, let alone a gas pedal -- rides up front. \nYou try to escape, but going out is no easy task at home. Just imagine if your parents were here in Bloomington:\n"Heading out kind of late, huh?"\n"Dad, it's only 10:30!" \n"Well, you'd better be back by midnight."\n"Midnight?! Mike and Joe don't even finish playing until then!"\n"Mike and Joe? Whoa now, who are these boys? You didn't mention you were going to see anyone! How old are they? How long have you known them? Where did you meet? And why haven't you brought them to the house?" \nDon't get me wrong. I love my family, and I enjoy getting to spend time at home with them and without classes. But it is a big adjustment. So a word of advice to all freshman who going home after their first year of college: when the going gets tough, don't take it out on the delivery guy.