School Supplies

I wish you could see my living room floor. I'd post a picture, but I can't see my living room floor. It's covered, totally covered, with an incredible amount of stuff.

Which reminds me.
Did you ever hear that old joke about the Chinese soldier who was in charge of procuring, maintaining and distributing his unit's military equipment? His superior thought he was doing an awful job and, even worse, the soldier was never at his post. It was later learned that the soldier was hiding out back behind the equipment tent, scaring every passerby who happened along. "Suuuuuupliiiiiiies!"

That's me, the infantry-mom, in charge of our unit's Supply Procurement, Maintenance, and Distribution. It's a lengthy job title (one of my many) and, in this household, a sometimes scary and labor intensive one. As I try to be a good steward of our family's expense account, I do my very best to "reduce, reuse, recycle," buy in bulk, and buy when the sales are hot.

That starts in July for school supplies, and you'll find me scouring slick Sunday ads for deals. All summer long I squirrel away bags of stuff and keep a running tally in my purse. When Walgreen's runs 10 count Papermate pens for .19 a pack (black, blue, red), I buy 20 packs. #2 lead pencils? 75 at a time. Two-pocket folders are 3 for $1? I get four times the amount the kids need, because folders get used up and need to be regularly replenished. Pencil boxes for 50 cents? Well, we still have decent pencil boxes from last year, so skip those.

And this is why you can't see my living room floor. It's covered with packs and stacks of Crayola markers (fine tip, and not), or Rose Art colored pencils, or pencil tip erasers, or spiral bound notebooks (1, 3 or 5 subjects, single or college ruled). Don't knock over my pile of Kleenex boxes and various styles of stainless steel round or pointed tip scissors. Loose leaf paper, graph paper, sketch paper, construction paper, copy paper: check check check check check.

I do all this with an ulterior motive: my kids don't have to accompany me to the store where the litany of "gotta haves" makes my head hurt. They shop in my living room from a wide assortment of supplies, filling their backpacks and checking off their own grade school list. This strategy has worked very well until today, when my entire family baulked at Andy having to use a particular pencil box leftover from someone last year.

"It's FINE," I insist.

"But it's PINK," Kieran says.

"It's red, and it's just a little faded. And see? Andy doesn't seem to mind!"

Maddie chimes in: "That's because he knows the rule."

"Yea," Merryn says. "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit."
(She's smug about her slick new pencil pouch anyway. It's pink with brown giraffe markings, and she lucked out receiving it as a birthday party favor. How smart is THAT mom?).

"It's PINK!!!" Kel says. "He can't walk into a new school with a whole new batch of boys to befriend and have a pink pencil box."

That's it. This crowd won't listen to reason or even the extra-light jingle of coins in my pocketbook. Not even my suggestion of adhering SuperHero stickers on top of the faded red pencil box top will suffice.

While Kel rolls his eyes over my cheap disposition (admittedly at the expense of a poor 6 year old child), I march with consolation into the kitchen where the bulk art supplies are stored and produce a perfectly fine BLUE pencilbox.

"Suuuuuupliiiiiiies!"