More pearls of wisdom from those streetwise pragmatists who publish the Iowa State University parents' handbook. Having warned parents that anything disconcerting will be blamed on "my room mate" and therefore counselling against the social embarassment consequent on visiting at the same time as the room-mate's parents, it also warns that once in a while, the new student will phone home distraught, after which the parents will not sleep a wink.
"What you will find out later is that immediately after you hung up, he or she talked with a couple of people, solved the problem and went out for pizza. That is why the number of gray hairs is figured by multiplying the number of college kid years by the number of offspring you have."