I blinked and it was over. I can say that about the summer (my kids go back to school this Thursday!), but unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the terrors of back-to-school shopping. Forget Wild Kingdom. If you’re looking for hours of savage entertainment, just go to the Back-to-School aisle in Target the Saturday before school starts and watch the parents fight over that last yellow folder.
It seems that every year, the list of necessary school supplies gets longer and more complicated. The kids need red folders, blue folders and yellow folders with specifically designated pockets and tabs; they need high-tech mechanical pencils (basic #2’s are approaching extinction); they need notebooks with built-in iPad docking stations; and much, much more.
According to National Retail Federation’s 2014 Back-to-School Survey, the average family with children in grades K-12 will spend $669.28 on apparel, shoes, supplies and electronics, up 5 percent from last year. That’s the bad news. The good news is, that based on these numbers, I’m above average. In less than two hours, I shelled out about 20% more to outfit my children for the first day of school.
I blame that extra 20% on the advanced back-to-school shopping skills my children seem to have developed over the years. In addition to the loose-leaf paper, composition notebooks, lunch bags, binders, dividers, planners, highlighters, pens, pouches, sneakers and jeans they piled into our cart, my sons managed to sneak in a few additional “must-have” items.
“Do you really need a DC comics shirt?”, I questioned my youngest son, Timothy. “You already have plenty of other t-shirts” (including the one we had just bought in the previous store that sported a trilogy of his favorite superheroes: Captain America, Thor and Iron Man) .
“But Mom,” he replied, with an earnest expression and giant Puss In Boots eyes, “I need it to inspire me!”
Did I buy the DC Comics shirt? Do Dreamworks donkeys fly?
Happy Monday,
Mary
Photo credit: hero.wikia.com
P.S. I must admit that superheroes are inspiring; just take a look at this year’s Matchmaker Logistics Superheroes of Shipping video!
