When we rounded the corner in Target and came face to face with an assault of red, orange and yellow back-to-school signs, I was predictably disgusted.
In July? Honestly?
But I must confess another emotion gripped me first: Glee.
In the insta-second it took my brain to flip through the mental calendar and realize it was way too early for bins of college-ruled notebooks to appear one aisle over from the summer gardening supplies, my heart lurched a little bit.
The kid within still lurks. And she still delights in the prospect of crisp, empty pages, unsharpened pencil points and the crrraaack of a new, three-ring binder.
Few things thrilled me more as a kid than the day in late summer when Mom would take us to Raindew in Bayside, N.Y. – a hodgepodge of a place that brought pharmacy, hardware store and housewares all under one roof. (No Targets or Wal-Marts back then.) We’d pile our arms high with notebooks, No. 2 pencils, Bic (or sometimes PaperMate) ballpoint pens and packs of looseleaf paper.
More than just new stuff, these school supplies carried the promise of a fresh start.
This will be the year I’ll have neat and tidy handwriting, take meticulous notes, use a ruler to underline words, raise my hand when I know the answer, be audacious and outspoken, popular and carefree.
Back to school meant starting over.
Sometimes a box of crayons is so much more than 24 sticks of colored wax.
But, really… July?
I bristled with the back-to-school stuff the other day in Office Max, mostly for the teachers’s sake. They are barely recovered from the past school year by this time. Also, last spring I bought myself the 120-crayon box, just because. Love it! Really cheap gift to self. Satisfies the 5-year old in me well.
Hey…please forgive the typo of “teachers’s.” I know that it is wrong! hahahaha
You are SUCH a nerd…and I love ya for it!