What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens.

Who thought up this nightmare scenario anyway?! It wasn’t as though the mad rush to get school supplies the weekend before school starts was not already bad enough BEFORE tax free weekend. It wasn’t that I put that much value on the savings of tax-free weekend, it was just that we’ve barely had enough money to EAT since my last pay day, so shopping any earlier was not an option this year. I know all the moral objections and social stigma associated with shopping at Wal-Mart, but when it’s crunch time, it’s the only store open 24/7 for the overworked general public, and they are SURELY in cahoots with the local school systems, as they really DO have absolutely EVERYTHING on those lists the schools send home with the kids every summer – those lists that clue you in about the small fortune you’re going to be expected to spend on school supplies later in the year. And that’s not even including whatever fees the SCHOOL is going to charge when we go register on Tuesday – God only knows how much THAT’S going to be.

Then of course, the kids MUST have at the very least, a few new clothes and shoes. In Kendall’s case, it’s not so much a matter of fashion as of necessity – clothing and footwear have a peculiar tendency to literally disintegrate on him over a very short period of time. Because he eats like a bird, he’s skinny as a rail, but that doesn’t seem to stop his feet from growing, or slow down the UPWARD momentum of his growing skeletal system.

So there we are in Wal-Mart late on a Friday night (because I really didn’t want to pollute my weekend with elbowing strangers in Wal-Mart for school supplies. Friday had already been muddied up by a workday – might as well round it off with tax-free shopping in Wal-Mart).

Several isles were generously stocked (or at least looked like they HAD been generously stocked) with all manner of school stuff – a virtual cornucopia of book bags, notebooks, papers, glue sticks, pencils, ink pens, markers, highlighters, pocket folders, etc. Studious Wal-Mart employees were helping to direct poor lost parents and enthusiastic kids through skillful interpretations of the sometimes baffling supply lists. What is a 5x5 Quad Ruled Marble Composition Book? A tabbed pocket folder? And what in heaven’s name is a frickin’ PLEASURE book?! Do they actually sell stuff like that in WAL-MART?! Is this how sex education starts…with PLEASURE books?! Well, I guess that was where I got MY sex education, but we dared not take our ‘pleasure’ books to SCHOOL! We kept them discreetly hidden under mattresses and buried in closet floors for cryin’ out loud! What has this world come to, that ‘pleasure’ books are actually listed on the official list of SCHOOL supplies? GEEZ.

Flustered parents with those familiar ‘lists’ in hand, looked  to other parents who had full buggies, assuming they knew where everything was since their buggies looked fully stocked – “Can you tell me where you found the glue sticks and colored pencils?” – the pleading desperation on their faces was frightening. Kids were predictably drawn to the most expensive displays like magnets, while parents dug though mountains of tousled budget items for the cheaper versions of the same.

During a moment of respite as we stepped out of the crowd to access our progress with buggy items as compared to list requirements, I hear a coy, young female voice – “Hiiiii Keeendaall.” Kendall lights up like a Christmas tree and I turn to see some flirty, hot little thing that looks more like a 16-year old sex kitten than a 12 year old – long blonde hair, long tanned legs in short shorts – oh GOD, I really thought I was going to have more time to get ready for this sort of thing!!

Once we’d filled our list (a separate package of colored pencils for EACH class?! Whaaaa???!!!!!), we headed for the clothes and shoes. Again, adults digging through the budget shelves while kids buzz around the ‘cool’ (and expensive) stuff. In the shoe department, an exhausted father sits wearily resting his head on hands as his wife and 2 daughters buzz from shoe box to shoe box like sharks in the throes of a feeding frenzy. One isle over, 3 girls from ages 6 to 16 are giggling and trying on high heels that look like hooker heels.

Somehow, I lived through all the madness and mayhem and managed to safely drive us home. Following a wretched fast food meal (because Wendy’s was the only food place around here that was open past MIDNIGHT), Kendall bustles out to the car and begins unloading all his new stuff. (Why is he never this eager to unload the GROCERIES?!) Right now, the living room floor looks quite similar to one of the school supply isles in Wal-Mart did a few hours ago.

I don’t think this was supposed to be what grand parenting was all about…

*slumps over on sofa as visions of notebooks and glue sticks dance in her head*