"Could my son come by and visit and try and woo you?"

A mom called me very anxious and panic stricken to ask about the status of her youngest son attending the university. She self-diagnosed herself as a “chronic-panicer” and “constant-worrier”. Her youngest son is to be freshmen and applied after the deadline for priority housing.  She explained that she already had an older son attending the university and was already in housing.

The overly anxious mom began asking me a series of questions to where I have stock piled answers because they are the same questions I’ve been getting asked for the last month. Because I tend to know which questions will be asked, I tend to include additional information in the hopes that I will answer their question before they ask it. In the middle of every answer I was giving her, she would interrupt me and say “ok, so let me ask you another question.” STOP interrupting me and I will answer your question. I was JUST getting to that.

After all was said and done, she was not happy that her son was in the 400s on the waiting list. I tried my best to calm her down. But do you know how difficult it is to calm down a chronic-panicer? She was making me nervous and I was the one that was almost positive that he would get a spot later down the line. She asked me, “if you were talking to your mom right now, how would you tell her to proceed?” And I responded with “I would tell my mom to calm down and let’s just wait until we see how many people return their contracts and how many more contracts will be offered before I start thinking about other options.” And believe me, I’ve said similar things to my mom. I am that person that will wait to get all the information in front of me and then make a decision. I find it ridiculous to make decisions before all the facts are known. She then physically had to calm herself down and said “yeah, we’ll just have to see what happens next week.” 

Then, this very anxious, nerve-wracked mom asked if there was anything else she could do. “No, I will send you an email on the 21^st updating you of everything.” “You know Elizabeth, my oldest son lives on campus still. Would it be worth him coming to visit you? You know, he’s very cute. Could he possibly come visit you and perhaps try to woo you ? You know, maybe bring you some baked goods. He’s a good looking guy.” WHAT? Was this mom seriously trying to pimp out her son to me? That was a very BOLD gesture and she must have thought of this before to have mentioned it at the top of her head in that moment so easily. “Uh, no. It’s ok. I have good faith that your younger son will be getting a contract and that is not necessary. And I’m not a baked goods kind of girl but I do really like Starbucks while we are on the subject.” “Ok Elizabeth, that is very good to know. I look forward to hearing from you next week.”  “Yes, we will talk next week, and please do not pimp out your son to anyone ever again. Have a great day.”