My Rained Out Parade

It is so time for school to start. The kids have run out of fun things to do and have now resorted to generally stirring up the shit. Like last night, when Jack and his buddies got a little sideways of our neighbor. I needn't go into all the details; suffice to say that blackberry juice does not rub off the side of someone's house with a shirt sleeve and some spit.

So I was thinking a day off from causing trouble in Mayberry wouldn't be a bad thing. I woke up with a plan. Instead of letting him wander around with the other hoodlums, trying to figure out ways to keep themselves busy, I thought it would be fun if just the two of us, Jack and me, went out and shopped for all of his school supplies today. We could go out to lunch, you know, a little McD's, hang out, roam around Target, that sort of thing.

I was psyched. School supplies! Sure, I'm a fast food junkie, and the thought of a #1 with Coke is not unappealing. And who doesn't love to loiter in Target? But the real draw for me is the pens. The paper. The notebooks and binders and sharpeners and folders and pouches and - oh my God, I'm starting to sweat. I adore school supplies. There's a whole cult of us out there, I know, secret Pee Chee lovers. I can't imagine a better shopping trip (although Vegas with a zero-balance credit card is up there.) I was so excited to present this opportunity to Jack - this blast of a day, just Mom and Me...

....but, alas, Jack is not a cult follower. Weird, since he's so like me, in so many other ways. When I asked him if he was up for the idea, he looked at me like I'd asked him if he wanted to go shopping at Macys for underwear, then sit in the hair salon while I had a cut and color, then go to lunch at some restaurant with food he can't identify. He looked pained.

"Arrgghhhh...." he groaned, his head thrown back dramatically, his arms dropped helplessly by his side, "do we haaaaave to? I haaaaaaate school supplies."

That can't even be a real sentence, can it? "I hate school supplies" ? Is he out of his mind? Whose kid is this, anyway?

Fine. I'll go by myself. Too bad for him if he ends up with a Hello Kitty binder and sparkly pencils with his name on them.

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P. S.
I found a new blog I really like. Check it out: http://msjwrites.blogspot.com/ (Is it normal for me to plug other people's blogs?) I don't even know this woman, although we do have a mutual friend. She's seriously funny and I hope I can be as entertaining as she is. In the meantime I'm just going to babble and hope I strike a chord somewhere.

P.P.S.
I'm not crazy about the new font I picked for my last post. In fact, it looks like something a 3rd grader would choose. But the point was to learn how to do it, and I did, sort of. I was quite proud of myself; if you knew the extent of my brain's scientific capacity, you'd be proud of me, too.