The remainders

There are so many calculations yet to make.

How many pairs of shoes should she bring? How many shirts? Pants? Jackets? Does she even have boots? How do three people share two closets?

How do three roommates, plus their respective entourages, go into one forced triple dorm room evenly? It seems there will always be a remainder. Hopefully, there's just a few cardboard boxes leftover. We will cut on their seams, fold flat and recycle them. We won't give them a second thought. Things, unlike actions, don't linger on a single thread of resentment, weaving its way into a winter-weight grudge.

The questions I am thinking should go without saying. But I won't be able to stay silent.

If you are the first one to arrive, should you take the best bed? Or should you wait until everyone is there and let two out of three games of Rock, Paper, Scissors decide?

Do you even know which sleeping area will be the most coveted?

Such is the complicated math of transitioning to an all-new living situation.

I try to simplify for sanity's sake.

Subtract three from our slotted arrival time to come up with the hour we should depart. This isn't an exact calculation, as we are allowed a window of time in which we can encounter stand-still traffic or stopping for rest rooms or snacks.

In this way, move-in day is more of an art than a science.

No matter, we keep running the numbers: Adding the square footage of the trunk space (with seats stowed) only to divide by the number of bags she has packed full to bursting.

"Should we attach the travel shell to the roof rack?"

I can't hide my annoyance. I don't even try.

"No. We should not attach the travel shell to the roof rack," I reply ... my voice threatening to cut the guy with its sharpened edges. "If it doesn't fit inside the car it's not likely going to fit inside the dorm room once we get it there."

How many times have we had this conversation?

Probably about the same number of times I've made an unsolicited suggestion and found myself backing away, both hands in the air, from the skirmish it escalated.

Does she need three pillows, two blankets AND a comforter? Probably not. Might it be embarrassing if the contents of her pack overfills the single yellow bulk hamper truck she will be allotted? It might sting for a minute. Will we have to schlep some of the extraneous items back home? Decidedly so.

The correct answer is ALWAYS yes!

Yes, she needs three pillows. Two blankets. And a comforter. Yes she will fit it all in.
Yes we will store any excess into her room, which will remain hers for all  eternity.

I have to remind myself I'm not the only one whose tensions are high.

I also have to stop myself from making some tired old joke about reclaiming her room; turning it into a space for craft-making or at-home physical fitness. It never gets a laugh. Even with my stunning lack of hobbies, the idea of such an erasure seems, on reflection, deeply unkind.

She hasn't really moved; she's just staying elsewhere for now.

There's even department stores where she's going ... you know ...  if she really can't live without a third blanket to match her pillow-count.