Moving In Weekend

     Hello Company, it's good to be with you again.  And it's good to see the sun again.  We here at Big Dave and Company have spent the past weekend tucked away in out super secret bunker beneath the streets of Wilmington, Delaware because it was the second-most dangerous weekend of the year back at home.  The most dangerous, like in most college towns, is usually Graduation Weekend.  The second-most dangerous weekend is Moving In Weekend.  Yeah.  That is the weekend before classes start when all of the college kids, usually accompanied by their parents, move their things into the dorms and run down apartments that surround campus.  It's always a gorgeous weekend, and this one has been no exception.  And it's usually not terribly hot, which is good.  I fondly remember my Moving In Weekends from the past when the weather is like it is today. Sunny, not warm, with a cool breeze off the lake.  It takes me back to a beige, cement block 12 x 12 room filled with cheap furniture and posters.  Those were good times.  And they are good times for the kids experiencing that today.  But once you have moved on into the real world after college, and you still live in a college town, Moving In Weekend is awful.

     There are a lot of reasons why it's awful.  First of all, by the time August comes along things have kind of settled down into a general summer malaise.  Sure there is a steady stream of SUV's towing boats and RV's cruising through town, but those people spread out across the area and don't bother us too much.  So we are like a cat lying in a sunbeam, happy and fat and just loving the way things are and all of the sudden BAM!  Eight thousand twenty-somethings come rolling into town all at once.  Now that's a shock to the system.  Seriously, the energy level in this town jumps about sixty-fold on Moving In Weekend.  The stores suddenly become nuts.  The bars suddenly become packed.  There are about eleventy billion more cars on the roads.  And there are people screaming in the streets at all hours of the day and night.  You can't even get a tin roof sundae at Frost Treats without setting up a tent the night before like you are in line for concert tickets.  It's ridiculous.

     It's especially ridiculous if you have already graduated, because as one gets older the traditional college activities become less and less exciting.  And the people who all of the sudden are surrounding you and engaging in those activities with uncommon zeal start to piss you off.  So I guess that what I am saying is that you start to feel that most of the kids who re-emerge on Moving In Weekend are douchebags.  And several are.  And I am too.  But the last thing any town needs is more douchebags, especially when the weather is nice and they are outside.  That is the worst part of Moving In Weekend.

     Now, there are some nice things about Moving In Weekend.  Most businesses, especially retail and restaurants do really well.  Suddenly there are a lot more pretty girls and handsome guys running around for the single set to prey upon.  And there are a lot more out of state license plates to take to pressure of the police off us locals.  And the townies can stop preying on each other and turn their attention towards their more traditional foes.  But despite it all it's really a weekend that everyone here at Big Dave and Company likes to avoid.  Have you ever been sitting in your dark house, relaxing comfortably on the couch right in front of the sliding glass door watching the tube, maybe watching Charles in Charge on DVD or doing some home shopping on QVC, when your best friend Dan sneaks around into the backyard and knocks loudly on the glass door and scares the hell out of you?  You jump straight into the air, levitate maybe two feet off the couch, and land four feet away in a corner holding the TV remote like a weapon with every hair on your body standing on end.  Meanwhile, Dan in lying on the patio wheezing and laughing so hard that he pisses his pants.  Have you ever had that happen?  Well, summer in a college town is like you when you are lying on your couch.  The school year is like after it's over and Dan has come inside and you two are eating Chex Mix and playing air hockey in the basement.  But Moving In Weekend is like that moment when Dan's hand as just struck the glass, and you are launching yourself into the stratosphere and you heart is actually stopping in your chest.  Yeah, that moment is Moving In Weekend.  And nobody likes that moment except for Dan.  So I guess you'd say that he's like the students.  And that is why on Moving In Weekend, Big Dave and Company moves out.