"

Junior Parents Weekend is a unique opportunity to give an inside look into our day-to-day lives for the people that raised us. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve spent over two and a half years just itching to show my parents firsthand the black tie galas that take up most of our Fridays here on campus. I’ve made so many memories at our weekly President’s dinners, so it was a dream come true to make some new ones with Mom and Dad.

Even weeks in advance, I don’t think I’d been more excited for anything in my ND career. My parents were going to get to see all the glory of a typical weekend on campus and all of the things that make it so great. The midnight parietals, the noise that’s politely contained in each individual dorm room, the conspicuous lack of vomit anywhere on campus: I couldn’t wait to show them all of it.

I think I’ve made it clear by this point that this weekend was the weekend of a lifetime. That said, I have just a few pieces of constructive criticism that I think will give parents an even truer ND experience. First, it would be great if we could pay freshmen to seek out each parent’s hotel room and scream about how drunk they are from right outside the door from the hours of 12:45 to 2:15 a.m. Second, we should really have those same freshmen find out where our parents are eating breakfast, then sit at the next table and throughout the meal relay loudly just how drunk they were the night before. Finally, it would really give the weekend that Notre Dame flair if, at the gala, we were to charge the adults who are paying tens of thousands to send their kids here two dollars for a mini bottle of water. Oh wait … we did that one? Perfect.