It’s that time again!

I’m standing in line at Jimmy John’s, ready to pick up my No.11 – no mayo. I look over and there is a stunning woman sitting at the booth toward the corner. So obviously, I have to immediately look cool.

And looking cool for a grad student is hard. We’re a bunch of Screeches from Saved By The Bell. We reference 80s TV for God’s sake. We are the nerdiest of the nerdy kids on campus. So, I do what every other 16-to-24-year old does in an attempt to look cool. I take out my cell phone.

Now, if this were 2006 I would look like a complete dork. So, thank God for 2010. I change the music playing, I send a text message – I have no friends, so I sent one to myself – and start reading email.

The text I just sent to myself makes my phone beep. Look at me! I’m so popular and cool. Chicks love me. Yeah, that’s the message I sent to myself.

She looks over. I look up and smile. She smiles. Life is good. She smiles again and makes head signals. I’m confused, very confused. Until I turn around.

She was looking at her parents. They were standing next to me. They were old enough to be my grandparents. They looked two cigarettes short of lung cancer and a breathing machine. Her father coughed and ash came out. Her mother sounded so Jewish I felt under-dressed.

What are all of these old people doing on campus? Aside from throwing salt in my game like they were Emeril Lagasse. BOOM!

Now, when I was dropped off for college, I was dropped off for college. I picked my things out of the trunk, got my bags, closed the trunk and before it latched shut my parents were in third gear – two blocks away.

But these parents won’t leave their kids alone! And some of them brought their extended families. I watched some lowly incoming freshman lead his parents, two little bothers and his grandparents through the bookstore while he was trying to buy his Biology text book.

“I can’t believe you are spending more than $100 on books,” the grandmother said. “What is the world coming to?”

An end. Look, if 100-bones feels expensive, just wait until Timmy loses a bet and has to buy the entire floor of his dorm a 12-pack.

There is a reason parents should simply drop kids off and leave. Because in college, parents are like herpes. Sure everyone’s got ’em, but you never see ’em! And every time the topic pops-up people act surprised,

“Oh, parents, you say? Yeah, I haven’t been tested lately but I don’t think I have those.”

Not these kids, though. They are parading their parents around like they just won the War on Terror. It’s not that the parents are clinging to them, they are clinging to their parents.

It’s interesting, for 18 years most of the kids walking around campus wanted independence. The freedom to do whatever, whenever. But while staring over the gorge of freedom they slowly slid back to lean against the tree of parental captivity. At 17, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Then, at 18, someone throws you into the neighbors lawn and you have to fend for yourself.

Interesting how perspectives change quickly. That brings me back to the woman, err, girl in the booth. Once I realized she wasn’t, you know, old enough to legally share a Mai Tai I quickly lost interest.

At least, until I meet her at a frat party in two weeks. I hear there is an eight-keg’er at Delta Chi.