Grace Sharma’s sneakers sprung a leak during the first week of cherubs. After getting soaked in the rain, a visible hole had formed at the tip of the toe in her only pair of sneakers.
“The day before we flew here, my mom was like, ‘You should pack an umbrella,’” she said. “I thought, ‘It can’t be that bad. I have my rain jacket. It’ll be fine.’ It was not fine.”
To cope with the rain without an umbrella, Sharma, of Lorton, Virginia, resorted to creative strategies – using her sweatshirt like a kangaroo pouch to keep her tote bag dry, wearing a baseball cap to cover her glasses so that she could still see and using taller friends as human shields during the Chicago boat ride so that rain would hit them and not her.
“Always listen to your mother when she tells you to bring an umbrella,” she said. “If you’re going to a city known for wind and rain, prepare for the said wind and rain.”
Learn from Sharma’s mistake and bring a raincoat, an umbrella and rainboots to stay dry when it gets rainy.
Collectively, cherubs forgot a lot – umbrellas, toothbrushes, hangers, beach towels – you name it, they forgot it. Some were ill-equipped to brave the walk between the showers and their dorm room. Emerson Swift of Mill Valley, California, highly recommended bringing a robe.
“Even if you don’t think you’ll need a robe, you will need a robe,” she said. “Trust.”
Celina Lee of Palo Alto, California, said she barely got by with a single towel.
“Do not think that one towel is enough for you,” she said. “Even though you go downstairs to the laundry room and you wash your towel, you will need another towel during the time your towel is in the wash.”
She suggested that future cherubs bring one for the beach, one for the shower and an extra, just in case.
Like Lee, many cherubs also suffered from a lack of proper “toweledge,” awkwardly sharing a beach towel with friends after a swim in Lake Michigan. Or, like cherub Elaine Jiang of Belmont, California, desperately needing paper towels.
“I spilled an embarrassingly large amount of ranch on my pants, and there were no paper towels in the bathrooms,” Jiang said.
Don’t be like Jiang. Tissues, paper towels and napkins for messy late-night snacks might be good to have on hand. Jiang also forgot, of all things, her toothbrush.
“I was visualizing my toiletry bag, and I realized that I had not packed my toothbrush from that morning,” she said. “So that was the first time I went to the Evanston Target.”
And as helpful as the store was for Jiang, Nina Bowens of Westport, Connecticut, put too much faith in its limited stock.
“I got here, and I thought, ‘Oh, Target would have a shower caddy,’” Bowens said. “I’m at Target, and they don’t have a frickin’ shower caddy.”
Call beforehand to make sure your item’s in stock (or rely on Amazon), before you neglect to pack it. Otherwise, you’ll end up like Bowens: walking to the bathroom with an armful of toiletries.
Footwear was also a point of contention, from shower shoes to beach sandals. Since many cherubs report logging 20,000 steps a day, Lizi Schierman of Tbilisi, Georgia, said she wished she packed running shoes. Avani Shah-Lipman of Berwyn, Pennsylvania, said she regrets not bringing slippers.
Yogis and runners might want to pack their mats and multiple sets of workout clothes.
“I am an avid yoga and meditation enjoyer,” said Eleanor Cook of Kalamazoo, Michigan, who brought her mat for her daily morning yoga.
Other miscellaneous must-haves include Band-Aids, portable chargers, playing cards, Command hooks, a speaker, scissors, plastic forks, an SD card reader, a handheld mirror, a laundry basket and extra at-home COVID-19 tests. Don’t forget that umbrella.
