School supply shopping: DONE!

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend on Aug. 5, 2011

I don’t want to shock you, but we are finished with the infamous, annual August ritual: school supply shopping. I know, I know. Had I waited until this weekend, it would all have been tax-free, but there is downsizing and desperation in the bureaucratic atmosphere. Should I deprive our government of a few tax dollars? I’m not ruffled by giving them ten dollars. At least I’m done shopping.


If I had needed to pinch pennies, I would have waited. But I can justify my extravagance. I am neither flying around the world nor running off on cruises nor buying expensive designer clothing. On the other hand, neither am I standing with a tin cup in hand along with the woeful dangling placard on my chest, so I feel it’s okay to have “indulged” in shopping earlier than usual. Waiting, for a procrastinator like me, can have its pitfalls.

I might have put off the trip indefinitely. Then, I would be dashing through the aisles at the same time as every other school year: The night before school starts. Going shopping the night before school is pretty much a bad idea. You are left to wander the aisles that look like they’ve been mobbed. They are strewn with spilled book covers. College-ruled papers are found in inappropriate relationships with the much younger wide-ruled set, tossed about in mislabeled boxes. This forces you to read each label as opposed to grabbing reams or composition books and tossing them, carefree, into the cart.

Shopping late leaves you to discover that those big, huge, bins of supplies aren’t actually filled from the ground up. They have a false cardboard bottom that is about thigh-high. You are going to be seeing way too many of these bare white cardboard bottoms than should legally be allowed. Last-second shopping leaves you squinting in the artificial night-shopper’s brightness well past the children’s bedtime. Invariably, there is some other procrastinator in the store who is carting around an unhappy and overtired toddler who cannot stop howling. This intensifies your painful experience. You want to howl too.

So this year, I have decided to forgo the pain that has tainted my perspective on shopping. I loathe shopping. I dread shopping. But shopping is a necessary evil, especially when you do not possess the skills and patience of a prairie settler.

I took the children shopping early because I had an idea of such sheer brilliance that I am now filled with fear and self-doubt. I turned over the lists as well as the chore of buying school supplies to each respective child. (Even the not-so-respective ones, for that matter.) I gave each child a cash allotment of thirty dollars. They were free to spend all of it or none of it, but their backpacks needed to be loaded with all the necessities. The thrifty could keep the surplus funds. The spendthrifts who require decorator binders would need to dig into their own savings.

The moment I called out this plan, the most miserly children (or the most ingenious, depending on your perspective), darted off. They checked the over-the-door, clear-pocket, shoe organizers where I had stuffed all those clearance, ten-cent book covers, as well as last year’s nickel-a-box crayons. They dashed down to the basement where I keep our overstock of school supplies for the school year. Then, they tackled the bins stacked with lined and graph paper as well as binders and portfolios. These rascals figured the quicker they pilfered our home for freebies, the smaller their cash outlay would be later on.


Watching my most eager children grab the last of the glue sticks, ferret out red pens, and strike gold with a pristine pencil pouch, I felt a mixture of shame (at hording supplies) and pride (at devising a plan that encourages them, instead of me, to do the hunting.)

Last year, I was reading a book on organizing and de-junking the home. Unfortunately, midway through the book, I misplaced it. I’m not trying to be funny; that’s the sad truth. In it, the author (whom I cannot acknowledge, since she has chosen to go AWOL amongst our other books) said we shouldn’t succumb to the myth of saving money by buying things on sale and then trying to make our homes into a place to store all these great finds. She said that’s why they have places called “stores.” Instead, we choose to live in junk-piles where we lack shelving and the full-time employees to keep them organized.


My children’s school shopping is DONE. We even finished shopping for the child we “adopted” through our church’s outreach. I’m glad my children have divested me of my hoard. Now all I need to do is find that book.

When Going Metric was Standard

Published in the September 2010 issue of The Warrenton Lifestyle Magazine ...

Is it just me, or were school supplies simpler a generation ago? Granted, in the seventies much of our high-tech gear hadn’t emerged on the scene. Post-its® and Wite-out® stick-pens were unknown; the singular innovation was invisible Scotch tape that didn’t pollute gift wrapping with strips of portable fog.

For school, you just needed some basics: a big binder, loose-leaf paper, and some pencils. A cigar box was required so it could be spray-painted gold or silver after noodles were glued onto the lid for the all important Mother’s Day present, but that could be bought later in the year. Even the noodles weren’t available in today’s vast and befuddling variety: You chose between macaroni or the plain shells that resembled dead mollusks. There were no requirements for highlighters, dividers, or specialized 4” x 6” neon index cards on a spiral pack, lined on one side only, please. At most, we needed a wooden ruler with inches on one side and centimeters on the other, because any year now, the US was going to go totally metric.

In so doing, we were finally going to unite with the world, save the world, or defeat the world. We weren’t sure which, but one had to be done, and this school crop of lamebrains, who had difficulty seeing the semblance in quarts and liters, would have to be trained. The metric system was so confounding, the new generation would have to be indoctrinated and converted. (Converted…wasn’t that a truly clever pun?)

Indoctrination required us to watch a Sesame-Street-esque show called “Metric Man.” Although we feigned maturity superior to its entertainment value, we secretly delighted in it. We were sophisticates belonging to the era of the folded notes passed with imaginative messages such as: “I like you. Do you like me? Check Yes or No.” The admirer usually had the courtesy to append a convenient box before the choices so the admiree could apply a checkmark in the appropriate place. In fourth and fifth grade, the only appropriate place was “NO!!!”

This was also the era of intolerance; checking both Yes and No was disallowed, even though that is how we usually feel about the people we really love. Most of the times they are so likable, but the remainder of time, unfortunately, they are not.

It had to be just one or the other back then, as when specifying one’s race. The options were limited to “White, Black, or Other.” I was always “other.” This piqued the kids in every school district I attended. Daily, they demanded to learn where my loyalties lay. Was I black or white? Surely, I was one or the other, and not Other, with a capital ‘O.’ When I told them I was neither; I was Indian, they declared defeat, but by way of retaliation, resorted to calling me “Pocahontas,” or “Poca,” for short. (This was before Disney enlightened us: Pocahontas was not merely a bright and compassionate 12-year-old daughter of a chief, but a voluptuous and leggy brown maiden with flashing eyes and a mass of raven hair that moved as if were its own life form. If Disney had produced this fiction in the 70’s, I might have delighted in the appellation.) Classmates weren’t wise to multiple race categories, but they were smart enough to reserve the jeers of “Poca” to the playground only. Nowadays, for race, we can check as many as apply: White – European, White – Anglo Saxon, or White – Eastern European.” Not only do you identify yourself as Asian or Pacific Islander, you specify the island and which end of it.

Remember “Metric Man?” Our weekly bolus of this show featured a sidekick with a rainbow propeller cap. For this, the TV had to be rolled in on a big black cart. The teacher exited the classroom to fetch this marvel of multimedia, and assigned the role of Benedict Arnold to the Pet. The Pet “took names” of all who dared to talk, squirm, laugh, pass notes, or even gas. Those whose names were recorded would be reckoned with upon the teacher’s return.

This involved a rap on the knuckles with a ruler and/or a couple of “licks” on the hand with the teacher’s miniature leather strap. This was the usual punishment for students excepting the snooty ones whose parents had refused to sign off on the corporal punishment permission slip. These unfortunates were left to hold up a book on either outstretched arm while standing in front of the class in a manner that, after about two or three minutes, looked almost as painful as the crucified form they resembled. I’m not sure what retribution the tattler, the teacher’s pet, would suffer later on the playground, but there was suffering, to be sure.

That final school supply, then, was the ruler. Crucial for measurement, it was equally effective in meting out corporal punishment. A swat on the hand was standard in school back then, but it was rapidly becoming quite metric.

Vengeance, thy Name is the School Supply List

Starting Monday, I’ll be teaching geometry, pre-algebra, 6th grade math, biology, and middle school life science. If this column starts to look a little ratty, you’ll know why. It will match my house. I can almost recall the original color of my bathtub. I don’t mean to gross you out. I’m not normally this acutely filthy, but if things start growing around my house, I can always claim it for, and blame it on, science. This is the biology teachers’ variant of saving paper towel tubes: collecting furry paper towel tubes.

But that’s not the best part about being a teacher. At long last, I can be on the other side of the school supply list. Ah, sweet revenge.

Have you noticed the feature-creep on school supply lists? I recall when boxes of tissues first snuck in and settled themselves just below the boxes of pencils on the list. Placing them there lent an air of legitimacy. We acquiesced, albeit grudgingly. After all, some children’s noses run as much as other children’s mouths.

Next was the incursion of the hand sanitizer, required to wage microscopic war against classroom germs. Now the school supply list includes sandwich bags. Are the students going to collect germs to bring home? I’m not sure, but if my children are going to be in your classroom, and you said you want sandwich bags, I’ll be sending them in. I’d rather you have a good impression of my kids. Sandwich bags? Check. Just say the word.

So now it’s my turn to make a school supply list. Here are some things my students need to bring to class, weekly:

1 dozen eggs
1 gallon of milk or ½ gallon of Silk (soymilk) or ½ gallon of Rice Dream
1 loaf of bread
3 cans of tuna or 2 cans of salmon
1 box of pasta

How do these supplies relate to their education? They don’t. But it does keep Teacher and her family fed, and having a teacher in the classroom has sometimes been shown to be conducive to learning. Before the school year ends, just to make the parents feel better, I may allow a slice of bread to mold and then view it under the microscope. I might even let the students take a peek too. Granted, this exercise may perturb the geometry students, but at least it will justify the school supply list.

Or, from the hundreds of eggs I will collect during the school year, I might select one egg to put it in vinegar. The students could examine and handle the egg with only its membrane after the calcium dissolves from the shell. Ooh, did I forget to tell you? Each student will also need to bring in one gallon of vinegar. Add that to your list, please.

Monthly, students need to bring:

1 bag of dog food
1 voucher for gasoline
1 canister of coffee
1 tube of lipstick

Teachers who are well caffeinated promote a better classroom environment. Hey, I don’t want any smart comments about the lipstick. Basic needs are basic needs. There is enough ugliness in this fallen world of ours. You don’t really want your children exposed to more in the classroom, do you? I thought not.

Just be glad I didn’t ask for mascara. And thank you, but the dog food is not for my personal consumption, even though I pride myself in not being a picky eater. The dog food is for our ultra-friendly shelter dog, Betty Lou who threatens to lick everyone to death.

Next important point: students need to know some important dates and information. You’re probably thinking about George Washington and 1776 and all that, but there are far more important things these students need to know.

Namely, they should be aware that my birthday is on September 12th. My favorite color is purple, and I am a little too fond of pens that write smoothly. I also have a terrible sweet tooth.

Now, if they really want to get into my good books, there might be extra credit for the students who remember my kids’ birthdays. Fortunately, these all occur during the school year, so that’s six more chances for extra brownie points. (And speaking of brownies, I’m not averse to those, either.)

Six chances aren’t enough? Oh, fine – let’s toss my husband into the mix. Seven is a much more auspicious number, anyway, don’t you think? If you “want” to send in gift cards, here would be some good times to do it. I’ll arrange them chronologically for you, just because I remember what it was like to be on the other side of the supply list, and I want to ease the pain for the parents. Parents may want to commit this list to memory .

Special dates: October 8th, November 22nd, February 28th, March 4th, March 31st, May 5th, and May 30th. I realize you are going to feel embarrassed about sending in that one-dollar mug from Dollar Tree, so here’s what let’s do. Each child could just pick one of those dates and then send , we would in something sturdy just that once a year.

So that’s it for the teacher supply list. For now, at least…