1544

the media coverage has begun. back in the headlines is little davidson college, chris's alma mater and school extraordinaire. i have become an intense wildcat through marriage, and have been anticipating basketball season ever since we (i do use "we"!) narrowly missed the final four last year. chris and i were fortunate to witness the magic from box seats here in raleigh, as davidson plowed through the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament. we have high expectations of the amazing stephen curry and his team this time around, and apparently we're in good company. but sports mania is not the topic du jour. instead, i'd like to highlight a formerly-little known fact about davidson. a fact that sports writers always managed to squeeze into their columns when introducing davidson to the rest of the country, after the school had put itself on the national map. a fact that never ceases to surprise people. the fact? davidson does the laundry for every member of its student body for all four years they attend, for free. (well, some might argue that paying a $33,000 yearly tuition makes the term "free" slightly inaccurate. probably true.) i am reminded of this each time i hang up many of chris's shirts and pants. he still has clothes that are labeled on the inside collar or waistband with the number 1544, which was the Personal Laundry Number assigned to him in the fall of 1992 by the davidson laundry service. i'm not quite sure what is more incredible ... that an institution of higher learning washes and dries and folds and irons the clothing of all of their students -- and did i mention it also includes free dry cleaning??? -- or that chris still owns, fits into, and wears some of the same clothing he did in the early 1990s. i guess that khaki pants and button-down shirts never go out of style. shoot, if we keep them long enough, i'm hoping liam might use 1544 as his Personal Laundry Number. oh -- and get a full-ride scholarship. preferably, a basketball one.