School Supply Shopping Nostalga

[RedLeader]

This morning, I had to make a stop at a local Staples store (to the international community, it is an American "office suppy" chain) to buy some resume paper. Anyway, despite it not even being August yet, they were having a huge sale on school supplies and there were a bunch of families taking advantage of it. And it really got me feeling nostalgic.

I LOVED shopping for school supplies as a kid. Typically, we'd be given a list in each class as to what we needed on the first day of school, and then were sent out into chaos on those first few nights. Pencils, pens, highlighters, glue, notebooks, protractors, graphing calculators, etc. Finding a cool looking trapper-keeper. And then even how the stuff smelled and felt it its prestine form. How "grown up" you felt being so organized and prepared.

And then practically your entire class would be in the same few stores. You'd have that rush of possibly running into your crush, or the fear of running into an enemy. The embarassment of being with your parents. Going to a different store and seeing the same people. Getting to stay up later than usual because you end up at a Wal-Mart at 11pm desperately searching for that one elusive suppy.

Seriously, even though I didn't remain perfectly organized throughout the schoolyear, I loved that feeling of shopping for school supplies. It made having to go back to school not nearly as bad. Reflecting back, honestly I don't know exactly why I liked this feeling/exprience so much, but I really did.

Anybody else want to share their feelings/memories on this topic?

 

[Rogue Robot]

I still enjoy shopping for school supplies, but as I pack my belongings, slowly, I realise that maybe it was more compulsive than a matter of need. I mean, sure, it's all things that I will use, but I have some rather ridiculous office supplies simply because they looked cool.

It has, however, become a ritual for me a few days before the semester starts to buy new notebooks, pen refills, highlighters, etc. I did stop buying my school supplies at Wal-Mart after the past couple of times of me doing that I got asked how old my child was. I did buy a bunch of coloured pencils and the like for one of my mapping courses, but I can see how it would be interpreted as me having a child, I guess.