Wednesday, July 29, 2009

School Supply Hell

Sometimes, its really hard to be me.

This year is the first year we have to buy school supplies for the kids to bring on their first day of school. There was a program set up where you could order the packet for your kid, and it would be there with their name on it on the first day. I thought I'd order it in July. Y'know, get a jump on things. Turns out, that there was a window, one week, at the end of the school year where you had to place your order. One week! I even read all the crap that gets sent home, and I didn't notice that there was a one-week supply ordering window! So now I had to print out the list, and go to Staples and collect all the stuff, and I thought I'd get a jump on this, since I didn't jump on the other thing.

Leila and I went to Staples after dropping the dog off to get his hair-do done. I had the list, I got a cart and started to look for the first thing on the list, a one-inch binder. Now, there were many one-inch binders to choose from, but I'm so anal that I wanted to make sure Leila had exactly the binder on the list. Guess what? The item numbers and descriptions matched nothing in the store. I threw a few things in the cart that I thought were probably the right things, but the ticonderoga pencils were suppose to come in a package of 12, sharpened, and I only found them in a package of 18, unsharpened. It went on like this for a while, and I was getting progressively more agitated. Leila read the sign on the wall that says "Staples: That was easy." and then added, "No, its not" We ended up putting everything back and leaving the store. It colored my whole day.

I came home and decided to search for all the stuff on line. After a little digging, I found the website associated with the program that pre-makes the packets and was able to order all but four things on there. The item numbers and descriptions matched, the prices were good and all was right with the world. I ended up going back to Staples (I know: obsessed much?) My dear husband reminded me that, if I had missed the window, that meant that loads of parents had missed the window. And if I was having trouble finding all the exact supplies, that meant that loads of kids would show up with all kinds of crap. I bet half the kids wont show up with anything at all. So, I got a composition book, and some glue sticks, but I drew the line at the scotch tape and post it notes. I'll be damned if I was going to pay $7.50 for some rolls of tape, and $18.99 (!) for 3x5 post-it notes! Those Staples kids are out of their minds.

1 comment:

Michelle said...

I occasionally have some melancholy about my "mommy day' being behind me . . . and then there are those other days. . . I applaud your proactiveness and I hear your pain.