Enough is enough

Twice a year the jet stream and the promise of a decent education bring a seasonal hurricane of U-Haul trucks and trailer hitches that batters Bloomington and reduces the functioning and accessible college town into a gridlocked chaos so overwhelming that only the supremely brave or supremely ignorant attempt to navigate it. \nLast Wednesday, that hurricane descended on us and gave the Midwest a touch of New York City at rush hour. When it was all over, surviving residents emerged from their homes amazed the whole town hadn't been replaced by a four-story parking garage.\nBecause all dorms open on the same day at the same time, some 10,000 students swarm like locusts on campus. In tow are parents, grandparents, pets, siblings and every possession that can be piled in the back of a Ford F-150. The ensuing free-for-all is only compounded in the time it takes a single student to unload the 1,500-pound maximum capacity of the family car.\nI'm continually amazed at the sheer tons of useless stuff that gets hauled into a dorm room. I see flatbeds, enormous rental trucks and more SUVs than are currently on the ground in Iraq; some even have trailers! When dorms open, the rolling warehouses cram onto every last bit of asphalt and grass for ten blocks, turning Bloomington into a used car lot.\nThe hurricane brings a flood of 30-inch televisions, portable grills, 10-cubic-foot refrigerators and surround-sound audio systems to go alongside lamps, five different blankets, 20 kinds of pillows, matching curtains and a month's supply of Easy Mac. \nThere is such a thing as too much.\nNow I'm as wasteful and ungrateful as the next person, but you're never going to convince me my dorm room needs a fold-out couch or a kitchenette.\nEverything is already provided for you on campus. Rooms come with furniture, Internet connections, heating and running water while dining halls provide obscene amounts of food. On top of that, ample open spaces, weekly movie showings, a top-ranked gym and three swimming pools should be able to keep anyone entertained without "Halo" or "Madden." If you're still bored, free-flowing alcohol, frat parties and poker games are easy to find. God forbid you pick up a book.\nI suppose in the end the whole point of lugging one's whole life to Bloomington is to keep a sense of familiarity. But is that really worth the trouble of carrying a 110-pound fridge up four flights of stairs? Call me lazy, but I doubt it.\nThere's absolutely no reason for students to bring some of the things they bring. The only things students need on campus are their clothes and enough quarters to clean them.\nHere's the real reason students pimp their dorm rooms: the more garish and over-the-top they can make it, the more likely it is that floormates will stop by and hang out. After all, who could resist watching MTV on a 40-inch plasma?