School Supplies? What a racket!

Classes have begun and it’s time for the annual pilgrimage to the office supply store.  I tell ya, they must be making a bundle.  I’m beginning to wonder if the school system has a deal going on with the local stores. 

Secret Corporate Executive:  “Pssst, we accidentally ordered six extra crates of bright yellow three-ring binders.  Any chance you could help us out?”  Next day:  “Attention students!  Along with your text books, you each need to have a bright yellow three-ring binder for class this year…”

With both kids in High School now, it’s was an expensive trip.  Also, High School is a different animal.  Back in the Middle and Elementary School days, a few weeks prior to the start of the school year, a list was given out.  It detailed the items everyone needed to bring in.  

Every kid needed their own glue-stick, colored pencils, and a box of tissues.  Apparently, for kids 13 and younger, their noses run a lot.

But now it’s High School.  It was my daughter’s very first day with the big kids.  But when I got home from work, instead of the expected talk about her first classes or how big the building is, all the talk was about a desperate need to go to Staples and get all brand-new supplies.  Last year’s stuff had apparently worn out. 

Now, it occurs to me that it’s entirely possible that the Secret Corporate Executive from above is actually my teenage daughter.

The list includes yellow three-ring binders, composition books, pens and pencils.  A box of mechanical pencils.  I simply do not understand the concept of needing to buy a box of 12 mechanical pencils every year.  I still have the one I used at COLLEGE.  (Granted, that was only just a few years ago, ahem.)  But why would you need a dozen? 

I explained politely, “You see, you’re not supposed to sharpen mechanical pencils…”  They don’t wear out!!  Why do they need multiple ones? 

Her eyes rolled back, like a normal teenager, “Things get lost in High School, Dad!  In fact, I found one pencil today!”  Well, sorry for the other kid, but then you should be good at least until Christmas… 

I still have a mechanical pencil from my Grandfather!  It’s gotta be from the early 1900s.  I think it’s steam operated.  It still has his name on it, with the old German spelling of the family name with an extra “n” at the end of “Reinmann”.  I haven’t lost it.  The only thing I’ve lost is the extra “n”!

And then there’s, Exhibit B – Binders.  A new binder for every class?  No, no, no…   At least we were able to talk her off the ledge about that one.  Check in the basement, use one from an old script of mine.  And maybe I can sneak home one of my “gently used” binders from work.  

Sure she might have to go to school with “BETA TEST RESULTS” plastered on her books, but that would be cool, right?  Does that qualify as “Hipster”?  No?  Well, she could cover them up with stickers or something, I suppose.  They still use stickers, don’t they?  Or is that too Middle School?

Oh and spoiler warning:  Many High Schoolers need a $100 calculator.  Yikes!  The word is, it will last through college.  Okay, that piece of equipment will last, but not a mechanical pencil?  Good, because I refuse to buy a box of 12 calculators.

      -- Tim Reinman