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Whether it's our oldest, youngest, only or other beloved offspring, it's a wrenching experience to drop our kids off at college. Most of us have vented our angst to friends, expressed our feelings of loss to our journals, blogged about it, sent out a tweet or two. One parent has found yet another platform to put his feelings out there: His email "out of office" message.

After the usual blather about who to contact if you absolutely need to reach someone in his office, Michael Merschel, book critic for the Dallas Morning News, left this message about his absence (as reported by Emily Gould in the New York Times):

"I want you to imagine a middle-aged man who fell in love with a beautiful baby girl almost 18 years ago, and now he is driving her to a gigantic college in a distant city filled with all kinds of people who do the things people do at college…and he has to leave her there. And drive home alone. In the dark. In a minivan."

Says it all, doesn't it.

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