DEPIES: I had a crazy weekend

This past weekend, I found out my parents were in Boston through Facebook.

I knew they were coming to visit, but it had been a couple of hours since they had arrived, and they still hadn’t gotten a hold of me. I open up Facebook, where the first thing I see is a picture of my dad grinning next to Fenway Park.

Usually parents are the ones waiting for their kids to call, but, of course, I’m watching my parents have plenty of fun exploring Boston before they’ve even made it to my dorm room. When they decided to visit the daughter they had traveled all the way from New Mexico to see, I related this story to them.

Laughing, my mom said, “Actually, your dad suggested we just hang out for the rest of the day and come see you tomorrow — you know, to let you rest after a long school week.”

Betrayed, my dad cuts in, “I was joking!”

Even if they find visiting Fenway more important than visiting me, I realize I’ve missed my parents.

We take a walk along Commonwealth Avenue while I describe the buildings we’re passing.

“This is the COM building — I know the cement exterior is a little off-putting, but we do actually have a green space,” I said. “And this is CAS, but I won’t show you the interior because I’m pretty sure my high school looked newer — and its lockers were bigger. But even though I’m not an engineering major, why don’t we take a tour of the ENG buildings? Those are really nice!” 

We continue our walk and I feel a sense of satisfaction that my parents like the school where they are sending my tuition money. I don’t know why I would even worry about it. My parents trust me and know this school is worth their hard-earned money.

Then my dad sees another parent on the street with a Boston University sweatshirt on and notes to my mom, “$80,000 sweatshirt.”

Never mind.

Once we get off-campus, the rest of the weekend is everything I’d hoped it would be. We visit the Boston Public Library, where my dad sneaks behind the podium in one of the lecture rooms and asks my mom to take a picture. Once we get back to campus, I take my parents to Insomnia Cookies, where my mom walks behind the counter to get a bottle of milk.

“Um, mom?” I laugh, “I think they can get that for you.”

Maybe parents’ weekend at BU is more stressful than enjoyable for some, but as my mom and I window-shop down Newbury Street — with my dad shaking his head in exasperation behind us — I realize that I’ve had a better time with my parents this weekend than I have on most weekends this year. Who needs drunken fraternity parties when you can wander down the streets of Chinatown with your parents?

Does the enjoyment I glean from spending a weekend with my parents say something about me? Probably. Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not.

Jessica Depies is a freshman in the College of Communication studying journalism. She can be reached at jdepies@bu.edu.