Back To School

I must admit I get excited about the notion of shopping for school supplies. It takes me back to the days when my mom would take us shopping in my small hometown. We’d stroll through aisles of neatly stacked workbooks and the whole place smelled of paper and pencil shavings and pristine erasers and held the promise of new beginnings, new friends to make, new things to learn, and new ways to avoid eating cafeteria food.

There was only one store we would go to but back to school shopping is just not that simple any more. Last year I hit three super stores, two pharmacies, and four office supply stores in search of every last item on the list. By the time we made it to the checkout line at each store I found myself flustered at the shortage of Fiskars scissors or 10 cent glue sticks. After getting completely burned out on shopping for school supplies last year, somehow I managed to miss the end-of-the year sign up for pre-packaged school supply packs. Seriously, is there a worse time to send out announcements than May when you’ve already OD’d on field trip forms, permission slips, and other announcements related to end of school year festivities? Besides, I really think that back to school shopping is a tradition, one that marks the end of summer and the start of new beginnings.

Take it from me, shopping for school supplies is not as memorable as you recall from your own childhood but, I still can't bring myself to buy the pre-paid packages. That takes all the fun out of this frustrating but fun shopping experience.