I Did Not Miss Back To School Shopping

I remember when Ian was younger, especially in grade school and middle school, the last week of August was always a pain in the butt because it was back to school shopping time.

Chris would go to the Oakdale Mall and to the stores on the Vestal Parkway and shop for clothes for Ian. Sometimes he went, and sometimes she went by herself. She had to drag him along when it came to getting new sneakers and shoes just so he could try them on. That part wasn't too bad.

The worst part of back-to-school shopping used to be trying to find everything that was on the list that came from the school every year. You needed a certain size binder for each class. And if I remember correctly, they had to be color coordinated. Then you had to get files or folders that had to be color coordinated as well. On top of that you needed paper, pencils, pens, markers and other supplies. And then once he got to high school, you needed to get a special calculator for the different math classes.

Maybe in the days of Amazon, back to school shopping isn't as bad now because you can do it all online. But back then, you had to drive from store to store to look for these different items. And every year without fail, there were one or two items that you just couldn't find. I think one time we went to three different stores looking for a yellow folder.

It dawned on me this week when I saw my friends posting on Facebook about their kids going back to school. That's when I realized that I don't miss back-to-school shopping at all.