Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Back to School

Yeterday was the day, the dreaded day, when our family loaded into the car, drove to Walmart, and bought all the things our children need for school.  Just so you know what we were up against, here are the supply lists:
Chase:
List missing due to failure to bring home at end of previous school year.
Megan:
1 pair non marking, white soled, velcro running shoes
1 backpack
1 two inch, non-zipper blue binder
3 Oxford brand dou-tangs in yellow, red, and green.
1 bottle Aleene's Tacky Glue
1 red Hilroy notebook, 108 pages, no coils, half plain, half interlined.
10 HB pencils
1 24 pack of Crayola pencil crayons, sharpened
1 24 pack of Crayola wax crayons
1 UHU glue stick
1 3 pack Paper Mate White Pearl Erasers
1 pencil sharpener with container to catch shavings.

Approximately 1 block from our house, Megan insisted on going back to the bathroom, so back we went.  Leaving our driveway for a second time, I tried not to imagine the impending disaster.  If one item on either list was wrong or missing, I knew it would mean an angry phone call from the teacher.  We arrived at the parking lot, to discover we weren't alone in our quest for school supplies: the entire lot was jammed with minivans.  Finally, after circling around for about 15 minutes, we found a spot. 

Upon entering the store, I saw hundreds of frantic parents with lists.  Juggling binders and babies, the looks on their faces told me this would not be a successful or happy time.  To solve the problem of Chase's missing list, we decided to just buy two of everything on Megan's, and deal with his teacher's wrath when the time came.  We already had shoes and backpacks, so the first thing was binders.  Turning down the aisle, we were greeted by a crying, screaming child with a throbbing red thumb.  A binder lay open on the floor in front of him.  Evidently the binder was the cause of the problem.  Stepping around the sobbing child and his mother who was now trying to comfort him, I saw the perfect binder.  It was just what the list required.  I quickly grabbed two of them and put them in the cart.  Ryan picked one up and examined it.  He told me it was black.  Nonsense, I insisted, it's navy blue, dark navy blue.  Ryan looked at me as if I was trying to convince him the binders were hot pink, but dropped them into the cart without saying a word. 

Next were the dou-tangs, which we found with relative ease and selected the six we felt best matched the color requirements.  The tacky glue was next.  I knew this would be the hardest item on the list to find, so I asked someone if the had any.  The woman smirked before informing me, in a very patronizing way, that they always sell out of that particular product "several months before the start of school."  I threw two bottles of Elmers glue into the cart and consulted the list for the next item, which was notebook.  I walked into the notebooks aisle and stared.  Empty shelves stared back at me.  I was about to give up and start homeschooling my kids when Chase asked, in a voice far too sweet for the situation, "Mom, whats that?"  He pointed under the shelf, where, to my astonishment, where two notebooks which nearly met the description.  They were 54 page coil notebooks, but I thought they were good enough because they were red. 

We found the pencils with no problems, bought Laurentian pencil crayons and knock off wax crayons.  Glue sticks were one thing I knew we must find.  Of all the items, they are the one the teachers are most specific about.  In perfect conformity to Murphey's Law, the store was entirely sold out.  I asked and found out that the nearest Walmart which had them in stock was over 200 miles away.  As we were walking back to the aisle where the glue sticks are to admit defeat and buy the wrong brand, I suddenly stopped.  There at the bottom of a cart laden with enought school suplies to last for decades to come, were two UHU glue picks.  I nudged Ryan, pointed to the glue sticks, and did what I knew I had to.  I walked up to the woman and said to her, in the nicest voice I could possibly acheive under the circumstances, "What a beautiful baby.  Could I hold her?"  Obviously eager to show off her child, which was actually quite repulsive, she handed her to me.  While I babbled about how lucky she was to have such a pretty young girl, Ryan quickly grabbed the glue sticks, dropped them into our cart, and threw some dou-tangs over them.  I was just about to return the baby to it's mother when I felt something wet on my shoulder.  I looked down and found, to my horror, that the baby ad thrown up directly on my shirt.  The woman apologized profusely as I returned to Ryan.

Two packs of pink erasers and two sharpeners later, we approached the check outs.  On a day like today one would expect a good portion of the 30 tills to be open, but, to my dismay, only five tills were open.  We were about to get in line for till six when we heard over the speakers, "manager to till six for an override please."  We quickly moved to till eleven.  Approximately half an hour later, it was our turn.  "Hello, did you find everything you neede today?" the casheir asked.  If only she knew the trouble we'd gone through.  "Yes," I lied through me teeth.  I could tell she wasn't buying it.  As she was ringing the last items through, we saw a woman being dragged to the exit by security, kicking and screaming something about missing gluesticks.  I quickly turned away as I stifled a giggle.  We loaded up the car headed home, and put the kids to bed.  As I changed into my pajamas, I noticed something on my shirt.  It was the puke from the baby, now dried on.  I threw the shirt into the laundry hamper to be dealt with another day, and went to bed.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

First Post

Welcome to sane by comparison.  Here you can read the daily events of the Hill family.  Hopefully it will it will live up to it's name and make you feel sane by comparison.