Tonight we went school supplies shopping. I am pretty sure my eyes were starting to glaze over. The shelf full of folders seemed to tower over me. How long should it take to pick out four? I began pulling them out one by one. We were looking specifically for plastic folders with pockets AND brads. I wanted to pull my hair out. So many folders, but where were the brads?! I now know what it feels like to look for a needle in a hay stack.

The angels started to sing as I put my hands on two lone plastic folders WITH brads! Then I remembered I had the girl with me. How about blue? No. How about red? No. Look, I found purple. Yes! Finally, we have one. This continued for what felt like a lifetime until somehow we found four acceptable colors WITH brads.

Next on the list were notebooks. Those were easy. I felt like the universe was finally on my side. I actually got an excited “yes” with the first three I pulled out of the box.

We rounded the corner. The aisle was crawling with parents and kids having the same battles we were having. Pencils. Erasers. Glue sticks. Maneuvering a cart in this mess was a nightmare.

She leaned over and whispered, “I’m hating every minute of this!”

I looked up at her and chuckled, “You are not alone.”

She laughed and said, “This is the absolute worst time of the year.”

I agreed, “Wouldn’t it be easier just to give the teachers money to buy this stuff for us?”

She nodded, “I would love to just throw money at it.” Me too! I would happily give $20, $30, even $50 to avoid this entire process. Surely other parents felt the same, right?!

As I turn back to the shelves in front of me I sigh. Colored pencils. Crayons. Markers. We are halfway through our list. Next year I swear I will do this alone. At least I can eliminate the senseless argument over colors. I’m pretty sure all of the supplies go into a closet and they don’t use the exact items they bought anyways.

As we were finally breaking free of the chaos, we passed each other again. Our eyes locked over our kid’s heads. We smiled and shared a moment of silent cheering! Success. One more year down. I swear next year we are shopping online!

How did your school supplies shopping trip go?