Dear Kid,

We’ve already established that you are a Deprived Child. While you got lots of love, plenty of food (a rare feat for a teenage boy), a bed of your very own, and enough nagging to prove we love you, you did not get all the physical trappings available to a person alive in the 21st century.

You did not get a new phone every 6 months (in fact, it was a long time before you got a phone at all). You did not get a car when you turned 16. You did not get a ticket to ride the space shuttle.

And now there are even more things for us to deprive you of.

A recent article on Mashable highlighted products for college kids. While I love Mashable, this author was clearly up against a deadline and (what’s the word I’m looking for? oh, yes) desperate.

The first item on the list is called the Space Bar. No, it is not a bottle of beer defying gravity. It’s a little shelf your monitor sits on that you can stow your keyboard under. Oh, wait. No college kids use desktop computers–they all use laptops. So maybe not a good choice for this article (cute shelf though).

Another item on this well-researched list is the Nostalgia Electrics BSET100CR 3 in 1 Breakfast Station which is a retro contraption that allows you to make coffee, pancakes, sausage, and toast. Simultaneously. I would never make fun of such a device (other than to wonder how one might clean it) because my wonderful friend Peggy bought one at Trader’s World for her son. No word on whether he’s ever used it. But, many college students live in dorms where one needs special permission to have a high wattage curling iron. Cooking devices like this are definitely verboten.

Moving on to: the 1.7 cubic foot frig. In dorm rooms, the frig is there. In apartments, the refrigerator is usually there. If it isn’t, you probably want something slightly larger than the ice cube tray.

Next we have the $300 Pocket Projector Mobile, 85-Lumen that is good for “movies, videos, presentations, and games.” Yup. Lots of college kids trotting around their own projector for presentations.

And my personal fave, the Dyson vacuum. Let’s be clear. I love you. I like the idea of you living in a clean-ish environment (I know you have a broom and I’m pretty sure your dorm has vacuums). But under no circumstances am I buying you a vacuum [for college] that costs more than my vacuum [for our home]. (You do not need to point out that I don’t vacuum. That’s a conversation for a different day.)

Here’s to spoiling our kids by not buying them everything under the sun.

Love, Mom