Welcome, parents! We are delighted that you have chosen to tour our campus with your offspring today. Thank you (in case no one has said this yet) for listening to late-catalogue Taylor Swift all the way here instead of early-catalogue Taylor Dayne, like you wanted. Thank you, too, for driving past the Starbucks on the highway and spending forty minutes looking for a local coffee shop, and waiting patiently for an oat-milk chai latte to be prepared and served in a ceramic cup, then consumed while seated on a too small stool at a too small table under the leaves of a looming potted bird-of-paradise. To insure that your prospective student continues to have an optimal experience today, we’ve got a few rules for you, you awesome parents! Violation of any of these rules could negatively affect your child’s chances of attending college here, because they’ll forever dwell in a hole of embarrassment in the middle of the Earth. So, yeah, don’t do these things:
1. Do not burp, cough, trip, sneeze, stub your toe, walk the wrong way, stop to tie your shoe, blow your nose, or call attention to your corporeal presence in any way. Don’t do that old-person throat-clearing thing you do (repeatedly), and definitely don’t ask anyone for a sour ball or a Halls or a Werther’s to remedy it. Be silent. Be invisible. Do not breathe.
2. Please refrain from making small talk, conversation, jokes, comments, and asides, or otherwise engaging in banter with your tour guide. Do not ask questions or prompt your child to ask questions through nods, nudges, stage whispers, or stares. Parents who attempt to circumvent this rule with proxy questions such as “Emma/Theo/Liza has a question about . . .” will be asked to leave the tour.
3. If you are touring your alma mater today, welcome back! Please note that utterances beginning with “Back in my day . . .” or “I remember the time . . .” or “Do they still . . .” are strictly prohibited.
4. It is expressly forbidden to relive or reënact any “high jinks” you participated in as a college student, including but not limited to: streaking, smoking, drinking, eliminating, rubbing any part of yourself against any part of campus statuary, or otherwise defacing school property. Do not remove any fire extinguishers/dining-hall cutlery/rest-room stall doors to demonstrate how you broke your wrist/played midnight Jarts/nearly set a Guinness Book toboggan record one night sophomore year when you were “blotto,” “wasted,” or “three sheets to the wind.” Also, don’t say “blotto.” Like, ever again.
5. Do not attempt to look smart by flexing any arcane or deep-tracks knowledge of the institution you are touring. Do not flex. Do not ask your tour guide to define “flex” (see rule 2). You may use Google to look up the modern usage of this word. Please read it only to yourself, silently (see rule 1).
6. You may not, under any circumstances, break into a rendition of “The Good Old Song,” “Boola Boola,” “The Buckeye Battle Cry,” “Hail to the Orange,” or any other school songs, chants, or cheers. If you must sing, don’t. There is no singing on the tour.
7. Parents, please remove any “spirit wear” prior to the tour. Any display of school colors, logos, emblems, or mascots on your person will not be tolerated. If that new packable down puffer from Huckberry that you bought especially for touring campuses happens to—even remotely—resemble official school colors, please stuff it back into the matching nylon bag it came in and keep it out of sight. You kept the matching nylon bag, right?
8. No pointing! Please, no pointing!
9. And no photos! God! Phones down! Unless you’re Googling “flex” (see rule 5).
10. If at all possible, just stay in the car. ♦
