School supplies

Actually, school doesn’t supply. That is why, at this time of year, you will see hoards of mothers looking hassled, clutching lists, and stocking up their carts in the “Back to School” section in Wal-Mart. The deal seems to be that your child doesn’t just have to have a pencil case with a few things in it; he/she has to help the school out with basics like paper, white board pens and erasers, boxes of tissues, disinfectant wipes, and various other daily items. I’m sure it would be cheaper and easier for the school to bulk buy these things. There must be some historical reason for this bring-and-share approach. Maybe it goes back to pioneering days, when times were hard and people mucked in. My guess is that though this is a chore and source of parental complaint, there would be a general sadness if the system changed and the lists were no longer handed out. It seems to be something of a rite of passage from one grade to the next, from the summer holidays to the new school year. I suppose the equivalent for British mums would be buying uniform.

The list is somewhat mystifying for an incomer. First there are the unfamiliar brand names. I’m going to include a few, for the sake of any Americans abroad who can go all nostalgic and misty-eyed at this point. Fiskars scissors, Crayola, RoseArt, Elmers glue, Ziploc bags, Merriam Webster dictionary. There. Had your fix?

Next comes the complication of familiar words with different meanings. Crayons on the list are wax crayons. What I think of as crayons are down as colored pencils. Felt tips are called markers, or I think just Crayola will do (I might be wrong on this). And Pony beads? But this isn’t just me. No-one seems to know what Pony beads are, except 3-yo’s Preschool. Then there are intriguing things like “1-1/2” three ring zippered binder (no trapper keepers)”. Actually, I do know what this object is. I really do. I haven’t fathomed what “1 hand-held pencil” could be, though. How could it possibly differ from the packet of ordinary #2 pencils I have bought? Are these non-hand-held in some way? Do kids plug them into their iPods these days?

Finally, there are the items which seem pretty straightforward, but which turn out to have a twist. At this point, one has to try to get inside the mind of an elementary school teacher. For example, “1 large pink eraser”. For me, the eraser has already used up enough of my mental energy by requiring me to remember not to call it a rubber (titter titter), so I am certainly not going to question why it has to be pink. I’ll just buy pink ones and think of a way of persuading the boys that they’re not girlie. Then there is the “1 box (15 or more) quart size FREEZER EZ slide Ziploc bags”. However, it seems that you can’t buy freezer Ziploc bags with an Easy Zipper slide. You just can’t (at least not in SuperTarget). It’s one or the other. So which is more important to the teacher? That she can put them in the freezer, or that they have zipper slides? Can’t have both. I went for the zipper slide (even though FREEZER was in capitals). How many of my children’s school activities need to be frozen, after all?

I can’t let this list pass by without telling you Brits about the superb Sharpie. A Sharpie pen is a permanent marker. That’s all really. They get me very excited though. You can write names on things that I’m sure British permanent markers can’t handle: plastic carrier bags, pencils and felt tips, hand-held sharpeners, water bottles that go through the dishwasher. When you’ve written a name with the Sharpie, it is dry instantly, so you don’t get that smear effect that you usually do, from rubbing your finger over to test whether it’s ok to rub your finger over. The Sharpie is a nice shape, stubbier than a felt tip, but gently rounded, like the fuselage of an aeroplane. I like the name Sharpie, too. I can get more excited about a Sharpie than a permanent marker, just as I can get more excited about a Biro than a ball point pen. I need to get out more.

Oh, and one other thing about the “Back to School” shopping experience. Hallowe’en costumes are in the stores already.

Post Script

Aha. I have solved the mystery of the hand-held pencil. I didn’t dare go and ask in Wal-Mart, although it might have been rather public spirited of me, giving a few sales assistants a good laugh on a Sunday night. Instead, I asked another mom at school. She explained that a hand-held pencil is the result of a typographical error. It should have been joined onto the next item on the list: “sharpener”. The object in question is a hand-held pencil sharpener. And in case you are equally mystified by this, let me pass on the explanation. If they just put “sharpener” on the list, some kids turn up with one which is the size of half a brick, which you plug into an electric socket. Saves you all that work of rotating the pencil yourself, but annoys the teacher as you have to get up from your desk to plug it in. So in fact I wasn’t far off with the iPod thought.