Sandi Kahn Shelton

For those who don’t know what the FAFSA is, I say to you: bow down right where you are at this minute and kiss the ground. Pat yourself on the back, shake your own hand–and then take yourself out for a nice dinner and drink.

The rest of us will just sit here, gnashing our teeth.

The FAFSA stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid, and it consists of, oh, about 103,000 questions designed to make you examine your entire financial situation. After all, you are asking the government to kick in a few bucks so you can send your child to college–and that help doesn’t come cheap.

They want worksheets from you if they’re going to think about doing something like that. And not only worksheets–they’d like to see your tax return, hear about your checking and savings accounts, and ponder with you how they might make use of your retirement funds before you get to them. They throw around inexplicable terms like “credit for federal tax on special fuels” and “foreign income exclusions.” Occasionally they mention the word “perjury” if you should fill out the forms wrong.

And they have STRICT DEADLINES. The kind of deadlines that mean you have to get your taxes done way before you would normally think of such a thing.

But all those are not even the worst things about the FAFSA.

The worst thing is that they want to operate the world on a system of PIN numbers.

Which you have to apply for in advance.

And everybody in your family has to have a different one.

And you are supposed to guard it with your very life and know where it is at all times.

Because if you forget yours, then you have to wait a long time while FAFSA thinks whether they will help you find it in their voluminous vaults where they store such things. Don’t even think about trying to get them to give you a new one. They won’t hear of it.

I don’t know about you, but I have had it with PIN numbers–especially PIN numbers that other people pick for me.

And so every year, despite the fact that I store the PIN numbers in folders which I mostly know the location of but not completely because too many things live in this house, I get heart palpitations just at the very thought of locating these PIN numbers and remembering whose is whose, and then entering them in just the right spaces, and worrying what if they’re wrong because I’ve waited until the very last minute ONCE AGAIN, and what if the government says these are the wrong numbers and they have to take a couple of weeks to go into their vault and look for my numbers, (which has happened in the past) and then we won’t get financial aid and it will all be my fault and March 1st is coming, which is the DEADLINE. The absolute DEADLINE for “priority consideration,” whatever that is.

I tell you, it could make a person delirious.

But last night, FEBRUARY 28, I sat down with all my trepidation and the online FAFSA, filled it all in, and typed in the PIN numbers.

Wrong, said FAFSA.

So I had the requisite minor heart attack, possibly a small stroke, began developing an ulcer and possibly some kind of tumor.

Retyped them, this time very carefully, so as not to transpose any numbers.

WRONG!

Then, through blurred vision, I realized that, ha ha, I had switched our numbers by accident. I had used MINE when I needed to use Stephanie’s. Ha ha ha.

I re-entered all the data. Filled out all the rest of the thousands of pages. Pressed the button to file my E-SIGNATURE, which is a hocus pocus thing so you don’t have to wait two weeks for them to process a piece of paper with your actual signature on it.

The FAFSA said NO.

Had another minor heart attack, several small strokes, noted that my ulcer was in full bloom now.

So I called them up! Yes, it turns out they have a phone number. And human beings. A HUMAN actually talked to me, and at first the human was as mystified as I was. I thought this was going to be another one of those times when machines have defeated us, like when you try to get your bank balance online and your bank pretends not to know you and says you didn’t type in your name, but YOU DID, it’s RIGHT THERE, but the machine says it isn’t, so you just have to leave the internet and go drink something alcoholic.

But then, when all seemed lost and there wasn’t going to be any financial aid this year after all, the human said, “Aha!” and explained that there was one teeny tiny question, one way way down at the bottom of the screen, which due to my hysterical blindness caused by the major illnesses I was contracting, I hadn’t noticed.

So I answered it, and palms sweaty and heart palpitating, pressed the SEND button–and the FAFSA left my computer screen and MAY HAVE GONE TO WHERE IT WAS SUPPOSED TO, that part remains to be seen, but it left at least.

I printed out all relevant documents, slumped over the keyboard, and promised that never again would I wait until the Last Possible Minute to do this, even though really there wasn’t any other way.

It was then I noticed that–hey, we have a Leap Day! March 1st is still technically waaaay off. We were awarded another whole day for the FAFSA this year.

I’m actually ahead of the game for once. AND, best of all, because Stephanie will be a junior next year, I only have to do ONE MORE FAFSA in my whole life.

One more to go. I might even be able to remember where I put the PIN numbers.

So I was talking to Stephanie last night on the phone.

(This character on the right is Stephanie on the day we took her to college. Notice the stylish luggage she has in the back seat, manufactured by the Glad Bag Corporation.)

After she told me how college is going (hard but okay overall), when she’ll come home for Thanksgiving (not until Wednesday night at the earliest, due to classes on Wednesday), she said, in a wistful, away-from-home-with-too-much-work-to-do-on-a-Sunday-night voice, “So how are things there? Is there anything new?”

Is there anything new! Well.

We have, I told her, a new, all-cotton, incredibly soft duvet for the quilt on our bed! Yep, life is moving at an incredible pace around here. We can barely keep up with the new developments.

The old cover–known as the Slippery Duvet because of the satiny material it’s made of–slipped down to the foot of the bed one too many times, I told her. I have, in fact, dislocated my shoulder chasing down that cover in the middle of the night. I can no longer even take the pitcher of iced tea out of the refrigerator because my shoulder hurts so much from pulling up the duvet with the down comforter inside of it. And forget hoisting my purse anymore, or even putting my hands on top of my head. The slippery duvet has hurt me for the last time.

Well, she started laughing so hard I thought she might get an injury herself.

“I can’t wait,” she said, when she could breathe again, “to have a conversation with Allie about this!”

Allie is my other daughter. She’s twenty-seven and also lives in New York.

“This is just the kind of conversation we love to have about you,” she said. “It’s just so…you!”

“Well, what will you possibly say about it?” I asked.

She fell into laughing all over again. “I don’t know. Just, you know, how you are! The Slippery Duvet and your theory of your shoulder…” She was gone again, in peals of laughter. “It’s going to be the funniest conversation ever. I can’t wait! I think I’m going to schedule it for a time when I’m the most busy, so I can really get the most benefit out of it.”

Can you believe this? I suppose I shouldn’t be so surprised to realize that I get discussed by the two of them on a regular basis, but…well, I am. A little. And to think that there are whole categories of stories that are so…well, me.

The Mom Stories.

Maybe this is a sub-category called the Mom Shoulder Stories. Or the Mom Duvet Stories.

I don’t know why I’m surprised. I certainly had Mom Stories with my sister, little tidbits I’d save up to discuss, things I couldn’t wait to impart and analyze.

But me chasing down a slippery duvet in the middle of the night…how is that so me?

They go away to college, and then they come home for a visit, and somehow everything has changed.

Stephanie, who has been gone nearly eight weeks now, came home from New York City recently, back to what was once her regular life in our small town.

I heard her on the phone on Saturday afternoon with a friend. She was saying, “Okay, I’ll meet you at Cilantro’s at five for coffee.”

“Oh, honey,” I said. “Remember that Cilantro’s closes at five on Saturdays.”

“Okay,” she said into the phone. “Let’s make it Cafe Grounded instead.”

“Um, Cafe Grounded closes at four.“

“All right, then–the bagel shop.”

“Well, sweetie, the bagel shop…I don’t think they’re open past lunch time.”

When she hung up, she looked at me and shook her head. “How in the world do people live here?”

If there’s anything I hate, it’s crying in public. Unfortunately, breaking down into loud, heaving sobs and smearing my face with mascara is, I’m afraid, one of my personal trademarks. My stepmother has always claimed this is a talent of mine, being able to fully cry, and she’s jealous that she can’t do anything but perhaps spurt out a couple of dustballs from her tear ducts–but I’ve always wished I could perhaps do a bit less of it. Put me in any semi-sentimental situation–say, anything involving the word goodbye–and you will find me murmuring under my breath, “I’m not going to cry…I’m not going to cry…”

This is what I am always saying just before I break down and have to be led away.

So the other day we took our youngest daughter to college, and I knew that there was no hope of not ending up a blithering, howling banshee, wailing on the streets of New York, letting everyone see that: (1) I am a person with no self-control, and (2) “waterproof” mascara is a big, giant hoax.

I decided that I should train for this, try to get myself desensitized. For days on end, whenever I would be alone in the car, I would practice saying, “Goodbye, Stephanie. Hope dorm life is wonderful, and remember to call me once in a while,” and see how many seconds it was until I needed to pull over. As the days went on, I got to where I could last for maybe twelve seconds. I didn’t see that there was much hope for getting any better than that. Clearly I was going to have to say my goodbye speech and then perform a mad dash in the other direction.

Or maybe, I thought, this was an occasion where you were supposed to cry–unlike, say, when you’re watching a stupid TV commercial in which a dog greets its owner after a long day. Perhaps, I thought, I should stop trying to hold back and just let myself wallow in tears–really give in to the flow of things for once in my life. That was my plan: to blubber away.

The Big Day dawned, and we spent the morning packing up a friend’s van and driving to New York City. First, there was unbelievable traffic. Then we arrived and waited in a line of cars for 45 minutes because there was no place to park. It started to rain. At the dorm, they ran out of carts–those handy things they’d promised we’d have for putting our furnishings in so we could transport them to the fourth floor. Our possessions sat in the rain on the sidewalk until we figured out that we could walk to the fourth floor rather than wait an hour for a cart and then stand in the twenty-minute line for the elevator.

By the time we made eight trips up the four flights of stairs, carrying bedding, computers, dishes, iPod accessories, shoes, clothing, and enough snacks to feed North America, we were all soaking wet and exhausted. We made beds, filled drawers, hung curtains, washed dishes, assembled furniture–and then ran through the rain to Whole Foods to get California rolls and strawberry smoothies. A homeless man on the street begged me to buy his umbrella for four bucks, and for some reason I did, and then laughed when it fell apart in my hands not even five minutes later, all the little spikes falling onto the pavement. Everywhere there were crowds of people, and water falling on our heads, and our shoes squishing in the puddles.

They herded us off to orientation then, where it was also too crowded. The hall was crammed with parents who all smelled wet and tired. Instead of looking sad while the president of the college told us our children would be all right, we all looked like we just needed someplace dry to sit down.

I’d forgotten how days like this really go. Here you think you are going to get a Huge Moment, a time that stands out in relief against the pageant of ordinary life. You think at least there will be a sense of something changing irrevocably, of the gates of your daughter’s childhood clanging shut, of your life shifting in a permanent way.

Instead, you find yourself simply doing what must be done, almost without fanfare. You are tired and wet and hot. You need something to drink. It’s like any other time you’ve moved furniture and boxes. You wonder why you didn’t bring your own umbrella from home, if the leather shoes you’re wearing will ever be the same after these puddles. You end up saying goodbye in the rain–your Big Moment amid the honking of the taxi cabs–and the little stinging in your eyes might just as well be a piece of dust that floated into your eye at the moment you raised your hand in farewell.

Anyway, she’s fine, and she’s promised to call tonight. You realize hours later that, hey, you’re fine, too.