what we don't know won't hurt us

Several weeks ago Laddie texted me to let me know that he was planning to attend the Eagles Superbowl parade in Philadelphia.  His college is in New York.  Coach and I were both like, 'Hard NO!'  We cited unpredictable winter weather for their 2 or 3 hour road trip and predictably crazy fans as our main reasons for requesting that he not attend.  

Ultimately he and his buddies (one of whom is from Philadelphia) didn't end up going, or that's what he wants us to believe.  I tried to trip him up afterwards by tossing out a text that read simply:  'How was the parade?'  I figured he and his pals still went and he just opted not to tell us.  I remember too well, the 'what your folks don't know won't hurt them' college philosophy.

Lad swears he didn't go.  He said that he and his buddies decided that the roads would be too icy.  Sounds entirely too sensible for a college mindset if you ask me.

Times are different now.  I think it is harder to get away with things.  

Last year when Lad was at school in Iowa, I noticed something unusual on our bank statement.  Our statement lists the details of Lad's college cash account, because that's how we have his account set up.  It makes it easy to transfer money.  I honestly never thought that it would be a way to track his spending.  Just never occurred to me.  There on the paper I could see that he had gotten cash out from a location a few hours away from his college campus.  

Can you say road trip?  I didn't bust his chops for it, because I was a college student once.  I enjoyed my fair share of road trips.

The first road trip I ever took was very early in my college career.  I was a freshman.  I had a cousin who was a freshman at the University of Illinois.  My girlfriend and I hung out with a couple of seniors from Notre Dame.  They were road tripping to U of I, and they invited us to go along.

I don't recall feeling the urge to get away from campus.  We had practically just arrived!  We were far from bored.  Still, we felt road trips and college went hand in hand.  An opportunity to do something fun was hard to pass up.  Plus, we didn't know that many freshman with cars.  

We went along and had a great time.  We stayed with my cousin and met our ride back at the predetermined meeting time the next day.  We didn't have a cell phone of course, so that was how we rolled.  Figuring things out in advance.

I made my cousin swear not to mention my visit, and my parents were none the wiser.  I suppose I could check Lad's bank statements to see if anything was purchased in Philadelphia at the time of the parade, but I think that sometimes what happens at college should stay at college.

My next memorable road trip was my last college road trip.  It was a little harder to pull off without anyone knowing it.  I tried, but did not succeed (more later).