school supplies!

I remember school supply shopping with fondness. All the potential in the blank paper, the rainbow of unused crayons, all in order for the only time in their existance. An unripped binder, and a pencil pouch that usually ended up empty. The NEWNESS of it all. and, this is important...the VAST ARRAY available for my perusal.

Today we went shopping for Kaia's supplies. She's only in kindergarten, so the list was short. Seemed to be missing some things I deemed necessary (crayons!!) and had things I didn't feel parents should have to supply (paper plates) but I was excited about Kaia's first supply outing.

Kaia was mostly excited about the need for a back pack. We'll start the saga there.

In the town we live in, there is really only one choice for this sort of shopping. There is another town a few miles down the road, if needed, but I really didn't feel like driving there, so to S. we went!

Back pack. First, Kaia said she wanted a "my little pony milkshake one like Zoe!" I had my doubts that we would be able to get that specific this late in the game, but told her we'd look. The first place we looked, in the regular back pack sections, led to ziltch. I did find out Kaia's MAIN requirement, which I really should have guessed. Pink. PINK. The back pack, to be at ALL acceptable, must be pink. ponies and milk shakes are optional - in fact, fall FAR behind this major requirement.
Deciding we would have to find the back pack elsewhere I heading to the school supply section figuring the rest of the list was quite simple.
There, we found BACK PACKS!! PINK ones! and one particular, perfect pink one! (no cartoon characters, yay!!!) That done, Kaia happily hugging her pink pack, we moved on.
to the next hurdle.

the list said:

24 #2 pencils sharpened

okay, that doesn't seem hard. pencils are easy to come by, right? and I do remember them starting to sell sharpened ones.
....pens......markers..........more pens............crayons.........pens..........highlighters.............

no pencils. none! what was this!?

finally, after getting on my knees, I found them on the bottom shelf, way in the back. of course. everyone was after pencils. oh, and they weren't sharpened. so you will find me at work tomorrow, sharpening 24 pencils.
(one more note on pencils...why do they still specify #2? You have to go to an art store to get anything else)

alright! pencil requirement mostly filled! NEXT!

5 glue sticks (Elmer's)

this, too, I thought, should be easy. I am very familiar with Elmer's brand glue, and have frequently saw, and purchased it, in stick form.

however. though this store did have approximately two miles of choices in size, shape, and color of Elmer's glue in bottles, they apparently had made a very lucrative deal with Scotch brand. There were numerous stands extolling the virtues of Scotch brand glue sticks. Scotch obviously wanted no competion, therefore there were NO Elmer's glue sticks to be had. and remember how we needed 5? Scotch proudly sells their glue sticks in packs of two.

After deciding the teacher could either deal with scotch brand or kiss my ass, I surveyed the rows and rows of binders. Kaia's list asked politely for

one 2" 3-ring binder

they had 1.5" ones. and were quite proud to show off their immense collection of 3" binders for our purchasing pleasure. but....I don't see....wait....and there, on one shelf, in a lonely cardboard box, that only appeared after long minutes of searching, sat TWO remaining 2" binders. Eureka!

After that, the 3 boxes of baby wipes, 2 stacks of paper plates, and 1 box of gallon sized ziplock bags were easy.