UNIVERSITY beckons for thousands of teenagers, but independence comes at a price. Here’s what you face without mum and dad as backup.
Getting out of bed
For years your failsafe alarm was your exasperated mum yelling increasingly annoyed demands for you to leave your pit. Now you discover being alone in halls and relying on your hungover self to manage timekeeping is a f**king nightmare, and you can’t ask mum to ring you every morning because she’ll just laugh. Luckily you discover a clever way to free up time for a more civilised start to the day: skip lectures for three years.
Getting about
That ‘Mum’s taxi’ sticker in the back window of her car was there for a reason. At uni there’s no such service, which is a disgrace and Burnham should do something. Instead there’s a choice of buses, cycling, walking, or what will become the most popular transport option for you: not bothering.
Feeding yourself
Home was like Hogwarts, where all the delicious food you like magically appeared. Now you’re having a bitter taste of independence. Initially you can live on takeaway deliveries but it’s a fool’s paradise and your cash will start to run out. You can mooch off the one mature girl in your block who can cook, but when she gets fed up of sharing her pasta you’ll have to make your own meals, or rather start rehydrating instant noodles. However by necessity your culinary repertoire will soon expand, so look forward to instant noodles on toast.
Washing and ironing clothes
It used to be irritating when your mum interrupted your gaming with a pile of washed and ironed clothes and fascistically asked you to put them away. They didn’t get clean and crease-free being scattered on the floor, as you’re about to find out. But don’t worry – you’ll be going home with a bag of stinking clothes and crispy bedding soon. And also don’t worry that it’s obviously just to get decent food and your laundry done. Your parents and the washing machine will be expecting you.
Cleaning yourself and your room
You’ll be packed off with cleaning products and given an explanation of how a trigger spray and cloth works, but that alone is unlikely to result in a clean bathroom. Hopefully you’ll have a bossy housemate with basic hygiene expectations in a not-all-male household, or you’ll learn that the toilet in The Young Ones was only a mild exaggeration.
Paying for things
At first you’ll be flush with cash from your maintenance loan and your parents. However three weeks later when you’ve blown the lot on alcohol and the odd textbook you’ll realise, shockingly, that budgeting, which absolutely everyone told you to do, is something you should have done. At first the bank is your friend and will extend your overdraft, but they have a tendency to suddenly stop giving you money to throw Jägerbombs down your neck and back up again. You should have known the capitalist fatcats didn’t really care about your education.
