Squawk Radio
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Elizabeth Does the Back-to-School Thing. Again.
Gee, it seems like it was just yesterday that school was ending for the summer. Homework was tapering down to nothing. My son was bringing home science projects and artwork by the truckload. Every time you switched on the radio, you heard Alice Cooper singing “School’s Out.” Like Christina said in yesterday’s blog, the lyrics circled through my head all week. I can still hear them now. “Out for sum-mer, out ‘til fa-all, we might not go back at a-all.”
The hell you won’t.
When I was a kid, summer was nirvana. As a working mom, summer is a pain in the ass. My husband teaches preschool, so I have not one, but TWO, extra bodies in the house during the summer months. This makes working at home difficult. It’s not that they’re noisy. It’s not that they’re intrusive. It’s not that they’re bothersome. It’s that they’re THERE. I don’t know about the other Squawkers, but I simply cannot work well unless I’m home alone. It almost feels like I’m being unfaithful to my family if I spend time with fictional characters instead of with them when they’re right on the other side of my office door. Not to mention they might walk in on me and see me playing spider solitaire, and then the jig would be up, and they’d know how much I goof off.
So I’m delighted that they’re both going back to school this week. What I’m not delighted about is all the back-to-school crap that goes along with getting them back-to-school. The new wardrobe for the kid who somehow went up a full size in eight weeks’ time. The new shoes for the suddenly enormous feet. The completion in one week's time of eight weeks’ worth of things his father and I PROMISED we’d do over the summer. The list of no fewer than two dozen “essentials” it has been decreed my son must bring with him on the first day of school.
When I was a kid, all we had to do was find a couple pads of lined paper and a pencil box, preferably one with Little Kiddles or Barbie on it, then toss in a handful of number twos with a pencil sharpener. If one was ostentacious, one might add an assortment of animal-shaped erasers. My son’s list of requirements for the average sixth-grader include such necessities as White-Out (in the age of computers and printers?), 4X6 index cards (I would think the 3X5s they also insist he have would do the trick) and not one but three VIEW binders. What the hell is a VIEW binder, anyway? Why do all the letters have to be capitalized? For that matter, what the hell is a clic eraser? Even the guy at Office Max didn’t know. And since when do you have to go to an office supply store to buy school supplies? And why are the receipts so detailed now, including descriptions of each item instead of a long, generic item number? Don't they realize that makes it impossible for me to slip them in with my legitimately tax-deductible receipts? I can just hear the accountant saying, “Why did you need seventy-two clic erasers? And just what the hell is a clic eraser anyway?”
Oh, well. Whatever it takes to get them back-to-school. I need my house back. And I need it empty, save myself and a handful of fictional people who do NOT need clic erasers or White-Out. I need to finish this book that was due yesterday before the end of the month. And, dammit, I need to be able to play spider solitaire without risk of discovery.
So is everyone else as happy as I am that the kids (and in some cases, husbands) are going back to school? Is everyone else scrambling to find bigger shoes and clic erasers? And is it just me, or does summer vacation leave you feeling like you really need a vacation?
The hell you won’t.
When I was a kid, summer was nirvana. As a working mom, summer is a pain in the ass. My husband teaches preschool, so I have not one, but TWO, extra bodies in the house during the summer months. This makes working at home difficult. It’s not that they’re noisy. It’s not that they’re intrusive. It’s not that they’re bothersome. It’s that they’re THERE. I don’t know about the other Squawkers, but I simply cannot work well unless I’m home alone. It almost feels like I’m being unfaithful to my family if I spend time with fictional characters instead of with them when they’re right on the other side of my office door. Not to mention they might walk in on me and see me playing spider solitaire, and then the jig would be up, and they’d know how much I goof off.
So I’m delighted that they’re both going back to school this week. What I’m not delighted about is all the back-to-school crap that goes along with getting them back-to-school. The new wardrobe for the kid who somehow went up a full size in eight weeks’ time. The new shoes for the suddenly enormous feet. The completion in one week's time of eight weeks’ worth of things his father and I PROMISED we’d do over the summer. The list of no fewer than two dozen “essentials” it has been decreed my son must bring with him on the first day of school.
When I was a kid, all we had to do was find a couple pads of lined paper and a pencil box, preferably one with Little Kiddles or Barbie on it, then toss in a handful of number twos with a pencil sharpener. If one was ostentacious, one might add an assortment of animal-shaped erasers. My son’s list of requirements for the average sixth-grader include such necessities as White-Out (in the age of computers and printers?), 4X6 index cards (I would think the 3X5s they also insist he have would do the trick) and not one but three VIEW binders. What the hell is a VIEW binder, anyway? Why do all the letters have to be capitalized? For that matter, what the hell is a clic eraser? Even the guy at Office Max didn’t know. And since when do you have to go to an office supply store to buy school supplies? And why are the receipts so detailed now, including descriptions of each item instead of a long, generic item number? Don't they realize that makes it impossible for me to slip them in with my legitimately tax-deductible receipts? I can just hear the accountant saying, “Why did you need seventy-two clic erasers? And just what the hell is a clic eraser anyway?”
Oh, well. Whatever it takes to get them back-to-school. I need my house back. And I need it empty, save myself and a handful of fictional people who do NOT need clic erasers or White-Out. I need to finish this book that was due yesterday before the end of the month. And, dammit, I need to be able to play spider solitaire without risk of discovery.
So is everyone else as happy as I am that the kids (and in some cases, husbands) are going back to school? Is everyone else scrambling to find bigger shoes and clic erasers? And is it just me, or does summer vacation leave you feeling like you really need a vacation?
Elizabeth Bevarly, 9:09 AM
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