Parents move students into dorms, many for first time

Adam Ramsey and Randy Cole are rolling a three-foot-tall refrigerator on a dolly down a top-floor hallway in Collins Living-Learning Center, looking for junior Natalie
Cole’s room.

They check the foot-themed door decks, looking for Natalie. There’s a colorful drawing of a foot with each name, and underneath each one is a fun fact about feet, like “Each foot produces more than a cup of perspiration per day. More when you exercise, at least one pint!”

Natalie’s name isn’t among the Johns, Matts and Alexs on the third floor of Collins Smith.

This is an all-male floor.

They’re in the

wrong building.

Natalie had just said “on the third floor” and pointed to a building before she left to get her key.

“She’s not answering her phone,” her brother, freshman Alex Cole, said. He called and texted twice.

He and Lisa Cole, their mother, followed a few minutes behind the refrigerator movers. They’re trying to call and text her to figure out what’s taking her so long and where her
actual room is.

Police officers directing traffic on Woodlawn Avenue had told the Coles they needed to unload and move their green Chevrolet Silverado in 15 minutes or they’d get a ticket.
Randy said their goal was to drop her fridge in front of the door and leave.

They decide to stand on the landing of the third floor to wait for Natalie. The air in the hallway is thick and stagnant, and sweat starts to shimmer on their foreheads.

Twenty minutes pass, and there’s still no sign of her.

“Maybe we should move the fridge back down,” Ramsey said. “It’s hot up here.”

“Yeah, and get into the shade,” Randy Cole said. “I bet it’s cooler under a shade tree.”
“I’m a little afraid to move it, though,” Ramsey said. “I don’t want to break it.”

Last year, 126 people moved into Collins on move-in day, said Julia Napolitano, a senior working at the Collins Center desk, and they’re expecting similar numbers this year.

Adam Ramsey said Natalie is probably stuck in line waiting for a key before she can come back and tell them in which building they’ll need to move the refrigerator again.

“She won’t admit she was wrong, though,“ Lisa Cole said. “She’s stubborn. Like her dad.”

Finally, close to a half-hour later, Natalie appears.

They’re finally ready to move her into her room in Collins Cravens.

And up another three flights of stairs.

Once again, they’re dragging a refrigerator down a hallway.

This time, the walls are covered in murals of elves on horseback.

They find her room at last and Natalie opens the door to a sizeable single.

“You got a steal,” Ramsey said, looking around and smiling.

The refrigerator was finally home.