MANDY FLYNN: A whole ‘nother country

For the past 73 days our son has been going to school in a whole ‘nother country, eight hours and 4,250 miles away. That is not an approximate — I figured it out.

Seventy-three days is 1,752 hours. Unless you factor in the time difference… which puts him five hours ahead of us. Except right now it’s only four hours because the time won’t change in the UK until March 29. But then I guess it will all come out in the wash when he crosses over into this time zone again in 27 days… or 648 hours… and gets his five hours back.

If you’re counting, which obviously I am not, that would mean that when all is said and done, I will not have seen my son for 100 days… or 2,400 hours. That’s 4,800 episodes of Seinfeld or the time Paula Deen says it would take to individually prepare 640 simple roasted turkeys.

That’s a lot of turkey. If you’re counting. Which I obviously am not.

When we first found out our 20-year-old would be spending much of winter abroad I did what many mothers would do, I suppose. I started to stress about what he should pack. How many pairs of pants would he need? Should I buy him a travel iron? It will be cold over there… should I get him a sub-zero snowsuit from LLBean and a supply of those little warmer things to stick in his socks?

“I don’t think England gets as cold as Antarctica,” my husband told me. Since when did he become an expert meteorologist, I thought. And so I looked it up.

“I told you it would be cold,” I said. “It says the winters can get down to four degrees over there!”

Okay, so maybe I should have checked that it was Celcius before I opened my mouth. But that’s still 39 degrees… I think. That’s cold.

“It gets colder than that in Athens,” he said. “ ould he walk around campus at the University of Georgia wearing a snowsuit?” Maybe if it was red, I thought. But I guess he had a point.

Still, I couldn’t let it go.

“Are you warm?” I ask almost every time we connect with him on Skype. Seeing his face pop up on the computer is a beautiful sight.

“I’m good, Mom,” he assures me every time. “Don’t worry.” It is cold there sometimes, but he is warm. It rains a lot. They eat a lot of potatoes. For every meal. The countryside is beautiful. Yes, he hung up his suit as soon as he got there. The people are nice. No, he hasn’t seen The Queen. School is hard, but great. He has to wear a robe when he eats in the big dining hall.

Yes, it looks a lot like the hall from Harry Potter. No, they don’t have owls delivering the mail.

He’s gotten used to the time difference. The museums are incredible.

“He looks cold. Do you think he looked cold?” I asked my husband after one evening Skype. I knew I should have gotten the sub zero.

“He looks great,” he said. “Leave him alone.”

This weekend, his program ends and our son departs on a traveling adventure for a few weeks before coming home. He’ll leave England and go to a dozen other countries, spawning an entirely new crop of worries for me. Will he be safe? Will he make good decisions? Will he eat?

Will he wash his clothes and not just turn them inside out when they get dirty? Does he have hand sanitizer?

“We end up in Iceland,” he said as he relayed his plans to us during a more recent evening talk. Oh, that’s ni…Wait… what?

“Iceland?! It’s cold there!” I exclaimed. I knew he should have listened to me about the snowsuit. No one ever listens to me.

It’s going to be a long 27 days. Maybe if I start now, I can watch 1,296 Seinfeld episodes to help pass the time. Or I could cook 172.8 turkeys. He likes turkey.

And that’s a lot of turkey. If you’re counting. Which I obviously am not.

Email columnist Mandy Flynn at [email protected]