Today was freshman moving day at UT, where the normally efficient residence hall is transformed into residence hell.  Especially the first half of the day, when the girls move in.

Why are girls different?  Easy.  Boys move in with a suitcase of clothes, a computer, a TV, and maybe a game system with the perfect mount for tv in corner.  Two trips carrying everything, or one with a cart.  Girls — moving into half a tiny room with fixed furniture, seem  to bring enough stuff to outfit a 2,000 square foot, two-bedroom house.  Futons, easy chairs, matching comforters and throw pillows, full-length mirrors, the works.

Especially freshmen girls.  Somehow, after a couple of years of this trauma, most pare down the quantity of trinkets needed.

After a long wait in a long line of cars at 8:00 this morning, it took another hour and a half to get all the stuff off the curb and up into the room.  HWTFM and Beta made three trips up ten flights of stairs carrying boxes, before we finally got a cart.  Then, once the cart was procured, it was about a 40-minute wait to get on the elevator.

After cramming all that stuff into the tiny room, then we had to loft the bed.  Note to next year’s parents: the lofts provided through the University don’t fit together all that well — take a toolbox.  Fortunately, Beta’s roommate’s dad had one.

Beta has an excellent roommate… I’ll have to give some serious thought to her super-cool nickname.  Don’t have one yet.

Tomorrow, we move Alpha into her new apartment, and the saga will continue.