Usually, I adore a good stroll down the office supply aisle. There’s something deeply comforting about looking at a colorful selection of writing utensils and notebooks.
(That’s not just a writer thing, right?)
But August means that it’s time to take a deep breath and gear up for the Great Obstacle Course also known as school-supply shopping!
Every year, we lurch around the store, while I try to accomplish the following:
- read the school-provided list with one hand and steer the cart with the other,
- find the best deals that will fulfill the obligation, and
- navigate the crowded spaces filled with many other irate supply-list shoppers.
When my sons were much much younger, I ALSO had to:
- keep things moving and the snacks flowing,
- clarify repeatedly that no, we can’t get anything off of THAT list because your grade uses THIS list, and
- explain that although you are indeed picking things out, you won’t be able to keep them because they are headed for the “community pile,” so we don’t really need to spend fourteen hours deciding between the green folder and the blue folder.
The lists also keep growing and growing. I have an idea: wouldn’t it be terrific if the school or district could add one more fee to the many fees we are already paying and use that to order what was needed? Just keep the rest of us out of the school-supply-shopping equation altogether?
Benefits:
- If the school ordered supplies in bulk, they’d be in a position to negotiate discounts. Yay!
- Everything would come out of the community pile (rather than going into it) so it would be like the school was giving the kids presents. Win-win!
Pausing here to recognize and honor that many teachers go way above and beyond to buy supplies themselves for the classroom–that, too, is an issue given the not-even-remotely-substantial-enough salaries that teachers receive, which could be a whole other post topic. Short version: teachers deserve so much more.
Anyway, back to the lists. Husband’s response to the news that we had to provide EIGHT large glue sticks one year: “Well, then I better see something glued come home Every. Single. Day.”
What are your favorite office or school supplies to buy? Or how are you preparing for fall, in general?
Chicks on the Case 
I like to use notebooks, I even keep small ones in my purse. I have to write things down or I’ll never remember anything. My husband misplaces pens and pencils all the time, I should buy them in bulk.
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Ooh, I love little notebooks too (and writing things down)!! 🙂
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I know I could do this on my phone but I’m an old fashioned kind of gal.
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I had to laugh when I read this. I absolutely adore school supply shopping and hope I can tag along with my daughter when she takes the grandkids! I love cruising the school supply aisles in Target and Walmart , and have found myself wistfully looking other posted class lists. As a writer, the most exciting thing I buy is a pack of colored index cards.
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Yes! The index cards!! They’re almost too pretty to write on…
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That could be a whole career–doing the school shopping for folks who are ready to hire someone to do it!
Yay for a variety of colors for your index cards…I also like buying legal pads in a variety of colors. Nothing like making a list on purple paper…
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My go-to office supplies? Copy paper and red pens. I like to print out my first draft and bleed all over it with red ink.
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Does the salt in tears dissolve in red ink?
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Alas, I’d does not.
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Me too, JC! Red ink = progress! 🙂
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It’s amazing how fast it is to run out of paper & printer cartridges!
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Honestly, I don’t remember school supply shopping as a kid. Maybe because we were so poor that other parents covered our costs.
We used pencils until they were too small to use anymore. Like, it couldn’t fit into the pencil sharpener contraption. 3 ring binders until they fell apart. I hated the composition books and loose leaf paper, because it had to be wide ruled, and I thought college ruled looked so cool! And back then, we had to put covers on the textbook. All those pretty and weird and funky covers, and we could only afford using the brown grocery bags from the base.
Supplies were so simple back then! Nowadays the kids need a Target aisle in their locker!
But I do love school supplies, because I can afford them now, and there’s always something I want to get, “to help my writing”. 😂
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My mom used to get free (yes, free) giant, hardcover books of wallpaper samples from whatever store gave them out on request. I guess people used to tear the pages out and try them on their walls–they were huge, and the paper was super-heavy. (Because, well…wallpaper.) So I got to choose my book covers every year, and thanks to my mom, they were works of art. Problem? I hated them. I wanted to have plain brown paper like the other kids, so I could personalize and doodle on them. Sigh.
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My kids are still required to cover their textbooks! They’ve used everything from grocery bags, wrapping paper, stretchy covers… And now the school fundraises by offering book covering services at the beginning of the year.
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Do they even have brown paper grocery bags anymore? I used to love covering my text books every year. I was so proud when I finally managed beautiful square corners!
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Hestia, agree that it “helps” our writing to have the right stuff! And the line about pencils not fitting into the sharpener anymore brought back such memories! Sharpening was such a whole THING and I sacrificed many a pencil to the great grinder on the wall!
And oh wow, the paper covers on the shared textbooks–I did like to doodle on them but I didn’t like how bumpy they were. *shivers*
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Ah school supply shopping.
My sister is gearing up for that with my nephew. But they do have a “give us $XX and we’ll buy all your stuff”option, so she may go for that, just to avoid the insanity – and the hours of debating between the blue folder and the green folder. LOL
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Oh, she is lucky to have that option. Smart school, that!
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Thank you for this, Cynthia! It should go viral as a public service. I loved school shopping as a kid (except for the Stride Rite shoe store part). Maybe it was just the idea of a “fresh” start, the first Thursday after Labor Day each year. Everything was new, for once. With my kids in NYC, the Catholic-school lists were very specific (and easy). No Lisa Frank folders–they had to be plain. No stickers. No colored ink. A local store in our neighborhood stocked it all, year-round. One-stop shopping. Except for the Stride Rite shoe store next door.
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Thank you for the reminder, Lisa! Such a good point about the “freshness”/beginning of the school year. I always did (and still do) like that!
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Agree about the fresh start!
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Wait–it’s almost fall? No way! We only just began to have summer weather, here in Santa Cruz, and my tomatoes aren’t even yet red! Wahhhh!!
As for school supplies, I miss those PeeWee folders with the football players and ice skaters on the cover. I gather they come in all different colors now, but for me they’ll always be that golden hue of—yes, autumn!
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Oh, when those tomatoes ripen, it’s going to be so terrific. Enjoy your Santa Cruz summertime!
Funny how the folders are so strong in our memories–I remember the ones you’re talking about. Back in the day, I gravitated toward ones with photos of landscapes on them. True story: Not too long ago, we were in the car and I yelled at my husband to please pull over because we were driving past a view that was almost exactly like a folder I had, with a field of flowers in front of a mountain. He waited patiently while I took like 849,248 pictures, but not one of them came out like that folder…
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Ha! I love this so much, Cyn!!
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It is the first half of August. I am still burying my head that fall is even on the horizon.
As to expecting parents and teachers to buy school supplies…I’d really like to look at budgets and how money is being spent. I’m sure the money for that could surely come from somewhere else. Or maybe that’s just the accountant in me.
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Can’t believe it either, Mark! Where did the summer go?
And it does seem like review might be useful…so many things that were covered when we all went to school are no longer covered. Like transportation…it cost a flipping dollar every time our kids took the bus!!
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I laughed at the glue stick comment!
My daughter looooooooooooooves school supply shopping. She’s a natural organizer, so nothing feels more right to her than folders, tabs, and PostIts. My personal MO was much as it is with office supplies today: purchase, then leave them in a pile, along with the rest of the things I should be putting in said folders and annotating with said PostIts.
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The glue stick makes me laugh every time too.
So happy that your daughter enjoys organizing! That is a skill unto itself.
And HA about your process. Hey, at least you’re ready for when you are ready to use them. 🙂
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That’s what I say!
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I’m retired now, but as a teacher I used this time to stock up for the coming school year. Every week I’d check the Staples ad & pick up the specials – pocket folders, pencils, pens, notebooks, markers. Now when I walk down those aisles it brings back memories of my classroom days!
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Yay, Judith! That is so wonderful and I’m sure your students very much appreciated your efforts.
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Whenever I go to the office supply store to buy something I absolutely need and have come especially to buy on sale, I always buy something off-list and not on sale, too. I’m lured by those office supplies I always pined for as a kid but wasn’t allowed to buy because they were unnecessary and too expensive. Even now I’m a bit like a kid in a candy store with multi-color pens and fancy notebooks!
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That’s great, Vickie! So glad that you can fulfill your inner office-supply dreams now! You deserve it!
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I LOVE office supplies. I can’t even begin to pick a favorite. But being a color person, I have to agree with Vickie and say multi-color pens are a personal favorite.
And your husband’s line about glue sticks is hilarious!
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I love them too! (Unless it is back-to-school-shopping.)
Am very drawn to multi-colored paper items…
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I’m a fan of a constant supply of notebooks and pens.
But I *am* concerned that I now have to go back-to-school shopping twice! This does not fit into my budget. So my kids want to have the freshness of gearing up for the new year, which makes sense–but then teachers will send out their personalized lists *after* classes begin, so I have to go back for round two. And all those supplies on the shelves are very tempting!
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Oh my gosh, YES! Didn’t even think to mention the double shop, which also adds a layer of arrrrrgh.
Maybe we should wait until the personalized lists come out and just go once! Don’t know why I never thought of that before…could we rebel and beat the system?
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I’m a sucker for 50c boxes of plain ‘ol #2 pencils and crayons. Absolutely can’t resist. When my kids were young, for a flat fee, our schools would buy their supplies and have them sitting on the kids’ desks on the first day. Very convenient and waaay cheaper, but I missed shopping for—and with—them. If I was smart, I would have volunteered for that committee and at least got a little taste of back-to-school shopping!
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College-ruled, white notebook paper. None of that icky brown pulp stuff! Thoughts of those shrink-wrapped stacks still bring little frissons of happiness. I don’t remember caring about anything else.
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