Extreme Makeover: Dorm Edition

What I wouldn’t give to go back to college right now.
I don’t miss the early-morning classes, of course. Nor do I want another shot at Western Civ. I took both sections of that class twice.
I want a do-over so I can redecorate my old dorm room.
“Dorm décor” was an oxymoron in the dark ages of 1985, when no major retailers marketed to what could be the most lucrative back-to-school group yet – college dorm rats. Now stores are capitalizing on the university students’ yen to personalize their regulation spaces.
Sears has pounced on the irresistible Ty Pennington and his “TYU” line. Linens-N-Things calls their department “Destination Dorm,” with righteous offerings to dress up your landlocked dorm room as a tiki lodge.
It makes me feel bad for my pitiful 10- x 14-foot room at UT’s Humes Hall. Back then, I thought I was pretty bitchin’ with my blue plastic milk crates, James Dean posters, New Wave album art and 40-lb. Smith Corona word processor. Luxury was finding out I could get a carpet square for $10.
Back then, the luckiest girls on the hall had refrigerators; microwaves were outlawed at UT. And you practically had to shop for the elusive extra-long twin sheets in Atlantis; they were that hard to find. Now they’re all over the Internet. My roommate had to make do with a tucked-in flat sheet.
“Making do” won’t do it anymore, though. You don’t need Mom’s cast-off furniture when the Bed Bath & Beyond Web site has sample photos of dorm room setups so you can pull together the perfect ensemble.
For a couple hundred dollars, you can have a college crib worthy of a parade of homes. No wistful housewife could resist BB&B’s Henna Dreams collection, with the pink pom-pom window curtain and the pendant disc chandelier in “kermit.”
Guess what color that is. All you need to know is that it perfectly complements the average dorm’s cinder-block walls. Most universities have virtual dorm tours, too, so you shouldn’t be surprised on move-in day.
Whether or not you’ve even met your roommate, y’all can coordinate online during the summer and have Pier 1 ship your “Design U” selections to your dorm so your dad won’t be angry all the way to Western Kentucky because he had to tie your corduroy papasan chair on top of the Yukon.
Don’t laugh too hard. The National Retail Federation estimates that college kids and parents (OK, parents) spent $2.6 billion in 2004 on dorm or apartment furnishings and décor. That doesn’t include electronics. Or books. Oh yeah, books -- the real reason we go to college in the first place.
If I’d had a prettier dorm room, maybe I would have curled up there with my Western Civ textbook more often. On the paisley “Las Flores” quilt from Pottery Barn, of course.