Wishing in Vain for Number Two Pencils
By now, you've probably completed your mission. You know the one. It's the time honored tradition you lurch through every year when you head out to do your kids' back to school shopping. You, along with countless other wild-eyed mothers, have already descended on
Walmarts, Kmarts, office supply stores and even drug stores in
search of everything itemized on the crumpled, mangled school supplies list you clutched in your sweaty, shaking palm.
Racing up and
down the aisles, you may have done others bodily harm to make away with the
last five subject spiral bound notebook in baby blue. You drove to five stores searching for the
“right” backpack. And if they were out of
Hannah Montana art boxes, you probably didn't go home.
I
sympathize; oh, I do. But all I can
really say is, “Those were the days.”
I wish I
were buying Hannah Montana art boxes. As
it is, I went back-to-school shopping with my daughters several weeks ago, but it was a
far different experience than those of yesteryear, which (I can’t believe I’m
saying this) I now recall with nostalgic fondness.
With an
older daughter entering her senior year of college and the youngest child
starting her college career as a freshman, I knew I wasn’t getting away with a
few boxes of number two pencils and some loose-leaf. But I was still hoping to be able to eat.
We’ve done the college thing before. The list goes something like this: new sheets, a mattress pad, a mattress topper (Did you ever lie on a dorm room mattress?), pillows, towels, bed risers (you have to raise the bed in order to be able to fit more stuff underneath it), a desk lamp, a fan, laundry detergent, personal care items, flip-flops (No bare feet on dorm shower floors—Ugh!), an alarm clock…hmmm…Did I miss anything?
“Mom! I need a computer!” Right, a computer.
"And I need a printer!" A printer. Check.
"Oh, and my cell phone? It's broken."
"What do you mean, it's broken?"
"The screen keeps turning white and I can't read my text messages." Heaven forbid. A new cell phone. Check.
"I just ordered my text books online. All together they cost $489.53."
Gulp. We haven't even started on cute new college clothes.
I figured the older daughter would be easier. After all, this is her fourth year. We should have some of this stuff by now.
"Mom! I need a bed!" A bed? Don't they have beds in dorms? Oh wait. No self-respecting colelge senior lives in a dorm. She's moving into a house. She needs a bed, as in a mattress, a box spring and a bed frame, which, as I recall, we have to carry up three flights of stairs. No elevators in this house.
"Mom! My roommates said I'll never survive up on the third floor without an air conditioner. It's like an oven up there." No central air in this house either.
“And I also need a desk. And a chair. Oh, and a rug.” Cha-ching. “But we can bring my old dressers from home. They’re not in such great shape anyway, and I’ll just throw them out at the end of the year.” Oh. Okay.
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