BACK TO SCHOOL SHOPPING

I have 4 kids to shop for this school year.  2 of the schools have graciously supplied us with shopping lists for each of the grade levels and classes.  These lists are very specific, they even state brands.  The elementary school specifies Prang watercolors, not the cheap one.. (yes, it actually says..."Not the cheap one")  I wonder if the school is being paid for product endorsements and is therefore obligated to require the use of the particular brand.  Don't laugh folks, if Pepsi can monopolize the soda vending machines at the upper level schools, is it really too far fetched to think that Crayola and Prang are taking over the multimillion dollar school supply market.  I must remember to look on the back of my crayola box to see if it says "Official Sponsor of the 2004-2005 School Year".  My high schoolers each have to have a million composition notebooks and several hundred reams of filler paper.  I still have leftovers from 2 years ago, mostly because my boys haven't done their homework in over 2 years so they never had to use any paper.

24 #2 pencils... why is that even on the list?  The kids are required to do their assignments in black ink.  And they must have a red correction pencil, this is so they can grade each other's papers instead of the teacher.  Hmmm, you'd think if they're going to have to do the teacher's job, the school should at least supply the red pencil.  But nope, these kids need 2 for all the grading they will be doing.  The kids sitting next to my boys will be getting off easy, they won't have anything to correct, if I knew who they were I'd call their parents up and just tell them to skip the red pencils.

Every year the elementary school requests that the parents send in 3 large boxes of facial tissue (Kleenex or Puffs of course), 2 rolls of Bounty papertowels, and a box of 1 gallon Ziploc bags.  One year I got a note from my son's teacher stating that I hadn't sent in the tissue.  I wrote back to her... Oh thats okay, he doesn't use tissue, he uses his teeshirt.  She did not ask for the tissue again.  Now if they asked for toilet paper, well, that I could understand.

Every year my kids force me to buy brand new backpacks and lunch boxes.  Why they can't use last years backpacks I don't know, I guess its a fashion thing, you know, sooooo last year and all!  And lunch boxes?  On the mornings that we get up with enough time to pack a lunch, they suddenly remember that they've forgetten the lunchbox at school, and we end up using papersacks, or the ever handy blue Wal-mart bag.  Last year when it was all said and done we had spent on the average $75 per child on school supplies.  We should have automatically have qualified for free lunches for at least the first month of school after that huge chunk was taken out of our monthly income.  Un-be-fricken-lievable!