CSotD: Big Mom On Campus
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Between Friends is dealing with Kim's son heading for college, which, by the way and not at all by coincidence, is happening in cartoonist Sandra Bell-Lundy's life as well, though not — as in Kim's case — for the first time. Yet they both face the empty nest.
There are so many ways I'm already enjoying the arc and they aren't necessarily in synch with Sandra's intentions. Sometimes that's a failure to communicate, and sometimes it's a tribute to depth. I'll go with the latter.
For instance, the first strip, from Monday, could be the "I buy the presents for you that I really want myself" line and that's not wrong, but you're missing a lot of nuance if that's all you see in it.
There's tons of fun to be had in watching Kim play house, getting all excited about getting Danny set up for college while I think he'd be happy enough to get into the dorm and see what he needs and either buy it or scrounge it or do without it.
My youngest grandchild is the sole boy among five young'uns, and so, when they all get together, he becomes a doll for his sister and cousins to play dress-up with. He enjoys the attention, while, by sharp and highly amusing contrast, Danny, at 17 or 18, would just as soon the spotlight — and his mother's desire to play "Let's Go To College" — were focused on someone else.
As for the coffeepot specifically, the issue is less about whether Danny drinks the stuff than whether he'd be setting up a little coffee nook even if he did.
Granted, dormitories are a lot more attractive now than they were a half-century ago: We weren't supposed to have a lot of appliances, because of the cost of utilities and also I suspect because of the fire hazard from both youthful stupidity and old wiring.
Coffeepots were permitted, but I drank coffee at the snack bar or in the library basement during "regular" studying anyway, which meant that, when it came to the end of the second semester of sophomore year and time to buckle down and hammer out some papers in the room, I found that the last time I'd used the coffeepot was during that same period at the end of first semester.
And that, as acidic as coffee is, mold can still grow in it.
There were guys who set up their dorm rooms as little homes-away-from-home, but there were more Oscars than Felixes among us, and most guys set things up along the ever-popular "bears with furniture" motif.
All of which is to say that it's good Kim was given a son those years back, because this arc is potentially a lot simpler and thus more funny than if she were dealing with a daughter, whose sense of "who's going to college, me or you?" might be more layered than Danny's, and whose resistance to good intentions could involve eye-rolls, which are more obnoxious than funny.
Danny isn't particularly "conflicted." He just doesn't care and doesn't want to deal with someone making a fuss over this stuff.
Meanwhile, it's also good that Kim is a college grad, since, if she were seeing a child live out her dream, the result would be a lot more touching than funny. Certainly, it would be cruel to laugh at her if her vicarious fussing were based on giving him what she never had rather than over something as silly and inescapable as trying to relive her own college days and also to keep touch with him as she feels the nest emptying.
As for "pick the color linens you want as long as it's the color linens I want you to want," I can't begin to tell you how much I love that scenario — whether it's that or "you pick the movie we rent, as long as it's the movie I want to see" or "you choose the restaurant, and keep choosing until you choose the one I'm thinking of."
I love it, that is, when someone else is the victim. Not so much when I'm in the contestant's seat, trying to guess the right answer.
I hope Sandra returns to "Danny's First Year" often. Kim has never really been a helicopter parent, but — like the other two women in this strip — she is a worrier and a fusser.
There is a rich vein of comedy gold to be mined here.
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