Moving away from home and into a dorm on a college campus was life altering. I imagined that it would be easy, but it wasn’t.
Sadly, I spent my entire senior year of high school, a year I could have enjoyed immensely, carping about having to wait until May to wave good-bye and move on with my life. I couldn’t wait to finally escape from my one-horse, Mayberry-ish hometown and move to Birmingham– and Samford University– the Harvard of the South. Destiny awaited me and I was ready to take it by storm. Alas, reality hit me right between the eyes before my first week of college classes were done.
As an incoming freshman, I had to learn my way around campus. I had some hometown friends already at Samford, but they lived in different dorms with different classes at different times. So, I trailed the crowd and hoped I could find my way around. For better or for worse, Samford requires its students to attend convocation (chapel) services roughly once per-week. Dutifully I made my way into the chapel without getting lost and took my seat between two total strangers– not fellow freshmen, but pre-law students.
As my luck would have it, the week’s excitement and stress had resulted in a canker sore eruption in the back of my mouth. So while the student choir was filing into the choir loft, I took time to dab some “Orajel” on my painful canker sore for relief. In a hurry to apply the medicine, I stuck my gel-tipped index finger all the way to the back of my mouth, causing my gag reflex to suddenly respond with a nasty “Uggghhhctt.”
“What was that loud noise? Was it me??? Did I do that? Oh, dear! What must everyone think?” The dumbfounded law student on my left stared at me for at least five seconds, but I refused to look back at him. I was too busy wiping away the string of drool that had inadvertently dripped from my mouth onto my light blue shirt– one that left an odd, conspicuous wet spot on my chest! Freshman fail #1.
Thirty-minutes after convo ended I found myself in the cafeteria looking for any of my hometown friends for stability. Fortunately, Steve and Jeff were there and they welcomed me to their table. In their company I was no longer a freshman, but a friend, so I relaxed. As we finished, Jeff saw some of his friends at a nearby table and took me to meet them. He made a quick introduction and I greeted them gladly as we took a seat at their table with them. Then the blonde girl sitting next to me, a member of the student choir, remarked, “Oh, yes I think I saw you in the audience this morning in convo. To be honest, I thought there was something wrong with you. Were you choking or something?” I could have died. As I was trying desperately to explain myself, my overly-excited hand accidentally toppled a glass of sweet tea right into her lap! Freshman fail #2.
The very next day at 8 a.m. I found myself in my freshman English Composition class with notebook and pen in hand. The professor, Mrs. Brown, asked for a show of hands of who in the class was familiar with how to write a two-page theme paper. I was among the lucky few who raised a hand. Mrs. Mackey had prepared me well in high school, so this should be a breeze. Mrs. Brown asked the class for possible topics. A tall, bushy-haired guy in on the back row suggested, “Euthanasia.” Mrs. Brown concurred and the writing began. I went 
straight to work– title, introduction, thesis statement, three paragraph main body, and conclusion. I was actually the first to finish. For me it was a piece of cake.
When time was up, Mrs. Brown began the process of walking us through the correct way to do the assignment. First she wrote the theme subject on the board: “Euthanasia = mercy killing.” It all seemed strange to me. I had never seen that word before. I looked down at my paper which read, “Youth In Asia.” Panic! My entire thematic essay was on the plight of young Americans fighting in Vietnam! Quietly and slowly I wadded-up the two pages of my brilliant anti-war essay into a tight ball and stuffed it in my pocket. I would take a zero before I would allow Mrs. Brown to see my stupidity. Freshman fail #3.
Later that same week, I ran out of clean underwear and socks. Now I had NEVER had to wash my own clothes when I lived in my one-horse town, and my lovely mother never trained me to do my own laundry. (She probably hoped it would entice me to visit home more often.) So, I put my big boy pants on and made my way to the dorm laundry room on the first floor to do what had to be done. With quarters in my pocket and a plastic basket in 
my arms I strolled into the vast room filled with washers and dryers. Fortunately, there was only one person in the room at the time. I recognized him as an important upperclassman that I had seen on stage in convo. He was seated in a plastic chair with a book in his lap, obviously uninterested in my arrival on the scene. Hopefully he wouldn’t recognize me as the campus drooler.
I glanced around and figured out where I needed to go with my basket and loaded the nearest machine with my stinky clothes. I quickly threw a cup of Tide in with my clothes and inserted two quarters into the proper slots. The coins dropped and, presto– I had successfully conquered new territory. No sooner had I sat down in the chair and opened my biology textbook that I began smelling something– something burning. What was that terrible smell? Then I heard the guy in the chair across the room ask,
“Hey man, do you always dry your clothes before you wash them?”
Freshman fail #4
Yes, I removed my clothes from the dryer, and tried unsuccessfully to clean the soap powder out of the drum. I finally had to start the whole process over with a different machine. The soap powder had already slipped through the holes in the and made its way to the heating element. Later in the evening the janitor placed an “out of order” sign on the dryer and taped it shut. It was all a humiliating experience.
The next weekend I humbly visited my magnificent little hometown– the sweetest place on Earth.
“Pride lands you flat on your face; humility prepares you for honors.” Proverbs 29:23 The Message Bible
