Shopping Addict Takes on Back to School

It’s the time of the year when parents begin thinking about back to school and the dreaded back to school shopping. As a child, I loved back to school shopping. Of course, shopping of any kind for me is like an addict's next fix.

It’s not just the clothes, although my closet can speak for itself. I confess that I love school supplies: the notebooks, shiny pencils, pink staples, the whole works.

When I was in fourth grade, everyone who was anyone had a Trapper Keeper. I coveted every single one of those lucky kids whose parents were willing to plop down the cash for one. I gazed at them longingly in the store, begging my mother to spend what she thought was too much on a binder that hadn’t been part of my school supply list. She finally relented, and at the store, I selected a unicorn Trapper Keeper with shades of pink and purple rainbows framing it in its glory. I cherished that binder and kept it for years, even after it split at its bindings and frayed at its no longer white edges.

What I didn’t have to think about when I was a student was the price of anything. Taking my children school shopping this week, I no longer felt that excitement when the register rang up all the required items on their supply lists.

My daughter was completely oblivious to this (like her mother had been, of course). She behaved like a child without her ADHD meds, bouncing around the store requesting if each item she touched was on her list. If it wasn’t, she wanted to know why. She’s in love with shopping, and has been since at eighteen months old she’d run through the children’s clothes section and hold up clothes to herself to see if it “fit.” I knew I was in trouble then, and she hasn’t done anything to change my mind since.

I don’t call her mini-me for nothing.

Thankfully, she hasn’t figured out that you can buy items that aren’t on a school supply list. I probably need to start saving for when she figures it out.

As a teacher, I still have the occasion to buy office supplies, and I still enjoy the excitement of back to school shopping. I’ve already prepared myself with tons of pink staples, plenty of purple ink pens, and all the sticky notes a person could use in a lifetime.

Though I love to prepare, the dreaded first day of school is a different story. And you better believe the day and the story is coming.