School Supplies

We have been shopping for school supplies the last few days, The Kid and I. We had the choice of buying a pre-assembled package from the PTO in May, but no – I thought it would be fun to shop for his school supplies together.

I love, I mean, really love school supplies. I love school supplies the way other women love shoes. I can spend hours wandering the aisles of Office Depot in a kind of ink-induced frenzy. I have been known to burst into tears when I come across a really really good pen. So, I just assumed that my sweet, sensitive, so-like-me child would love them too and The Kid could care less.

But for the most part, I have had a lot of fun gathering all the things on his school supply list. It was great - until yesterday when I hit a wall. I simply could not find the very specific, special kind of marble composition book my industrious little first grader would need.

Now, I am no stranger to composition books. I have been journaling in them for years. I have quite a collection, beginning with the college ruled numbers from my grad school days, to the current issues which are wide ruled to compensate for my rapidly aging eyesight. I draw the line at color covers, though, I’m strictly a B & W girl.

(Quick aside on eyesight: Last night there were these bugs on the counter & when Lefty came home I said, There are some odd little bugs here, what are they? And Lefty said, ants. So I put on my glasses and sure enough, ants! But without my glasses I truly had no idea.)

I called around under the naive illusion that I could ask a person who works at someplace if they had something in stock and they could somehow check and let me know. But after dealing with a handful of surly people who didn’t want to be bothered, my friend Kim at Office Depot said, yes, they had the marble composition book with story paper and red baseline and she kindly offered to put 2 behind the customer service desk for me and I breezed in this morning and picked them up, grabbing a couple of extras in case any of The Kid’s classmate’s parents had run into the same trouble.

I had fun and The Kid wasn’t too embarrassed by my swooning in the folder aisle. Next stop – MEET THE TEACHER, tomorrow at three!