Tips that us "Old Fogeys" need to know

<p>UCLAri: What is a Stop plate.... and what does it do?</p>

<p>Our son had no idea how to write out a check when buying his books in the U bookstore first semester. He was a wee bit embarrassed.</p>

<p>He did know how to do laundry because it was a ploicy in our household that if cloths were not in the hamper on laundry day, guilty parties had to do their own. He learned to hone his top notch laundry skills throughout HS!</p>

<p>from binx: Practical tip we did with S#1 -- Gave him two sets of towels -- one set in a light color, one in dark. So he could wash towels with whatever load of clothes he was doing. (Separating by color doesn't always happen, though -- probably mostly wishful thinking on my part. But most of their stuff is old enough that it doesn't matter.)</p>

<p>The two colors of towels is a great idea. </p>

<p>BTW: When son opened the taxi door to traffic side, why were the police called? Did it cause an accident?</p>

<p>My S is incredibly unorganized and careless, and also incredibly lucky. He has lost his phone twice, but both times it was returned by the person who found it--once turned into the student center at his school, and once found by kind folks whose house he'd canvassed who searched the road and sent it back to him.</p>

<p>This fall, he dropped his wallet in New York Port Authority! A woman found it, called someone she knew in New Jersey to go through the phone book and match his address with a number ,called us, then, I kid you not, took a bus to our town (she was coming to NJ, but not here), to meet us and give it back. S maintained that he must've been pickpocketed, but the kind lady pointed out it still had his money in it, so unlikely--she scolded him, too, which i had no problem with. :)</p>

<p>I do believe it's generic. H once checked the oil before we started down the parkway to Cape May. Halfway down, he realized he didn't have his wallet. Stopped, searched car, then he opened the hood, and there it was, still sitting on the engine block....like S, he's both careless and lucky.</p>

<p>Things my S doesn't have--credit card, checking account, Ipod, laptop, Gameboy, watch (like others have said, cell phones are the new watches and alarm clocks). He definitely also runs by the KISS principle, out of necessity.</p>

<p>garland: I chuckled at your son's suggestion that he had been pickpocketed. That the kind of thing my son would have claimed. When the kind lady scolded him, that probably made more of an impression on him than anything we dumb parents could say.</p>

<p>And he honestly believed it--he kept saying, No, I know I didn't drop it, I was being really careful about it! </p>

<p>Well, thank God for a lot of honest people in the world.</p>

<p>Garland
Can I relate to lost wallets and cell phones! Left on plane seats, etc. Wallet returned months later by minister (after telling him to keep the $ for postage and charity, but ID stuff was safe)
At a weekend talk about what became S's college, a FA spoke about their honor code, and how his S would leave laptop or cell around, and come back in a day or 2 and find it. It was a real selling point! Must say, kids really do grow up and gain organizational skills in a year away.</p>

<p>I'm glad people are posting the naive/dumb things our kids do. It reminds me of things that I need to discuss with our son (such as: you don't put a wool suit (or wool sweater) into the wash. Check labels!!! Especially since some wool pants look just like the washable microfiber pants.</p>

<p>(My younger son put a pair of 100% wool slacks through the laundry. Luckily they had been a bit too big for him. Afterwards, they fit fine (of course they needed to be ironed!!!)</p>

<p>bookworm: What college has that honor code? UVA???</p>

<p>I think lots do, but in this case its Caltech. Its such a small school, and kids can live in same House over 4 years, that the trust is high. Almost all exams are take-homes, on Honor code.</p>

<p>In the mid-70s, we used to call Information (411) for cooking and cleaning tips. The operators, love them all, would be so nice and tell us things like (i) how long to bake a potato, (ii) how to make spaghetti sauce, (iii) how to clean the oven.</p>

<p>Jlauer, we are "Clueless in Alabama"! Actually my DD, college freshman, was born old, and is very responsible. Occasionally, she would do something like try to mail the huge envelope with one stamp just out of sheltered ignorance, but mostly she was very observant AND, importantly, aware that there were a lot of daily life skill things that she didn't know going into college, and was savvy enough to be worried about them.
I sent her off with a very complete kit of desk supplies, simple fix-it things like glue, tacks, needles and pins, etc and told her she would know every guy in the dorm within a month - I think she is about out of supplies, but hasn't actually used any of them herself!</p>

<p>I stand in awe of you guys! I will be there next time, my son loses everything - not quite as spectacularly as some of your sons, but he holds his own. He can be taught, he loses one thing, then never loses that same thing again (except watches, he has no regard for watches), once we gone through the great universe of THINGS, he'll be OK. Boy Scouts has helped, when you are 12 years old, on your first camp-out, you leave the food box unlocked, and the raccoons get to eat instead of you - you don't do that again.</p>

<p>I do have to share one story - a couple of guys from DD's senior class, went off to big state uni to share an apartment (no dorm space outside honors college). Brand new lovely apartment. The Mom (who shared this story) is a little concerned, but one kid has a sister who is a college junior there to help look at for them. Her son enjoys cooking and had done some cooking at home, so they won't starve. Night 2, the boys have a nice dinner, but call home about 9pm frantic - what do we do, we set the dishwasher on fire???, it was running and now flames are coming out! Moral of this story - no wooden spoons.</p>

<p>cangel: I can relate to the "sheltered ignorance" theory. I think that is what is what partly going on in our home. Since our younger son "was born old" and can do anything and everything, I've had to tell him to "hold back" and stop doing everything for his older brother. It got to the point that older brother was using his younger brother as his personal slave (change my calc batteries, change my printer cartridges, find my tv remote, change the toilet paper roll, need towels, etc) and younger brother was only happy to do it. Therefore, not only did older son not know how to do these things, older son didn't even know where the replacements were kept.</p>

<p>another laundry tip for your boys- a new dark colored T-shirt needs to be washed either alone or with like colored items. A boy we know washed a new navy sweatshirt with his light clothes. Besides bleeding color it left lint on most of the clothes.
I think girls make fewer laundry errors because they are more into what they wear. And over the years have had more hand washable items.
I did remind my D that her suit was not machine washable. It was to expensive of a purchase to let go without a few reminders.
Mine has figured out it also pays to wash everything new at home before going back. It is painful to use a whole washer to wash 1 brand new red t shirt when your paying for your own laundry.</p>

<p>mom60 My kids do know sorting colors and know about the Shout "Color Catcher sheets" when their colored wash has a variety of colors in it. (they are reusable altho the package doesn't say so)</p>

<p>One thing that helps with white sox laundry is a very large mesh bag with a zipper (Walmart) is by their hamper. (They have a few so an empty one can be used while a filled one goes through laundry.) Zipped Mesh bag goes in wash and no socks get lost. (It also helps if all white sox match so they just don't have to find their mates.)</p>

<p>My daughter got the idea of giving towels as graduation presents to her guy friends. I shopped around and finally found these thick heavy beach towels in muted, greyed colors. The guys loved them - they are big enough and thick enough to be good drying towels, and the colors aren't too "beachy", but light enough to not run so badly - many of the "guy" beach towels were bright orange or dark blue. Also easily washable with jeans.</p>

<p>I have a dumb question: Where do kids put their wet towels to dry in between showers. I am assuming that they can't just leave them in the bathroom.</p>

<p>Boys do love using beach towels or the new "body towels" -- since they are too lazy to use a bathrobe to go to and from bathroom!! Usually Costco and Sams club have them for a good price.</p>

<p>Want a story about a girl that was "clueless"? Sophomore Daughter was home for Christmas. Went to the doctors by herself. Called home. "Mom, the car is gone. I know I parked it by the red truck, and now it's gone." My life is flashing before my eyes -- insurance, police report, new car. She says she'll go check in the office next door, to see if they know anything about it. Five minutes later, I get a phone call. Turns out there were TWO doors leading out of the doctor's waiting room, each one lead to a parking lot. And each parking lot had a red truck.</p>

<p>I did worry about my firstborn having all the"practical living" details down enough to survive this first semester...he attends an Ivy League school and we know he is intelligent/articulate,etc., but he sometimes does not handle the small details as well. Imagine my surprise (and pride) when he announced that he was the only one in his suite that knew how to use an iron- "mom, can you imagine not knowing how to iron your own clothes if you needed to?" I had to chuckle to myself! He learned how to iron because he left his clothes wadded up in his car or on the floor (even when clean) so I refused to fix them with an iron. Instead, i handed him the ironing board and iron and told him to do it himself. It came in handy this fall. Now if we can just get him to learn how to cook a little bit... still maintains that a sandwich tastes better if I make it. (we do know that is laziness disguised as flattery!)</p>