Stewart: Conversations to avoid when you’re at home

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By Ross Stewart

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Welcome back to those awkward pauses at family dinners after you’ve moved away for college. It’s awkward, but resist filling that pause with the first thing that comes to mind. You’ve been tuned the past four months for sitting and yakking with your peers, not with your folks. Here are a few subjects to avoid.

1. If you are trying to outdo your uncles or cousins in the area of drunken tales, just remember this: They’re usually older than you, and they have less to live for. Also, if you want graduation money it’d be best to not look like a lush.

2. Replace any reference you make to alcohol in No. 1 with a drug.

3. Don’t tell them about your sexcapades. They don’t care. It’d be the same as hearing them discussing how their sex life has been going since you’ve left home.

4. We all think we figured out the system in college. That’s great. But telling your folks that you never need to attend class to get good grades isn’t a good idea.

5. Don’t tell them that all those extra charges on the credit card in Missouri were for booze you bought at a grocery store.

6. If your folks, or someone from your family, buy you your food, don’t explain to them how much better you eat than they do. Milk in a glass bottle isn’t a novelty — it’s delicious. I know. I’ve had it before.

7. You’re proud of some of your achievements, as we all are, and want to show them off. But if you’re going to show them off on Facebook, it might be best to check around your profile before you let them sneak a peak. No one wants to skip from a picture of themselves winning an award to one that includes little to no clothes.

Vacations from school are supposedly a stress-reliever, so take a break and don’t ruin it for yourself.

Stewart is a Wichita senior in journalism.

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