School Supply Lists Are For Chumps

As much as I try to will it to remain July forever, August is coming. I used to dread September, but then they moved the first day of school up to mid-August. Evidently, September winds weren’t broasting the skin off of enough grade schoolers, so they moved it up to August slash purgatory. With the beginning of school come school supplies. When I was a kid, it was a big deal. You got crayons, 2 pencils, scissors and glue. Anything else was gravy. If you were lucky, your mom would buy a Trapper Keeper in your choice of colors: red or blue. Nowadays, teachers require everything from 2 kinds of crayons and glue to camera film and sandwich baggies. I don’t, but I imagine a lot of these teachers are slipping items from their personal grocery lists on the school supply sheets.
“Okay, Mom, we got crayons. Now, we need cat food, toothpaste, some menthol Marlboro's and a Woman’s Day magazine.”

School supplies have also gotten increasingly crappy in our Dollar General world. We used to have compasses that you could shish-ka-bob stuff on. If some kid ticked you off at lunch, you could use the compass to shank him. When you entered math class, you would wipe the blood on your jeans and finish your math homework. Somehow, life seemed simpler then. Now, they have plastic compasses. As if they are assuming every kid in the world is in special education geometry class.

What has happened to lunchboxes? My good friend recently gave me a cool book for my birthday with vintage lunchboxes in it. It is awesome to look back and remember what a joy school lunch used to be. The boxes used to be sturdy. You could sit on them on the bus and your Little Debbie snack cake stayed in tact. Now, they are made of cloth, so your peanut butter and jelly sandwich looks like a gordita by the time lunch rolls around. They also used to say a lot about your personality. A funny cartoon lunchbox meant you liked to laugh. A princess/doll one meant you were a girly girl. An action/adventure one meant you were a tough guy wannabe. A brown bag meant Mommy was out late again with her new boyfriend. Today, lunchboxes mean nothing as far as what kind of person you are. They usually mean that Wal-Mart only had Dora the Explorer. Tough luck, son.

I won’t even get started on what I think about what should and what does go into a lunchbox.

*My sister had a Hollie Hobbie lunchbox. My brother had Dukes of Hazzard and Gremlins lunchboxes. I had Snoopy (which could not be located at press time). Curse you Lucy! You win this round!