Back to School

Inside this backpack are the school supplies needed for a girl about to enter the fifth grade. Actually, I can be more specific than that. I can tell you that it contains 24 pencils and a case to put them in. Colored pencils, markers, 2 boxes of crayons. 6 folders of assorted colors, 4 wide-ruled subject notebooks, 2 composition notebooks. Should I go on? Yes, I can tell you exactly what is in this backpack. What I can't tell you is when exactly it was that school supplies lists got so long. Or why on earth every single kid needs to be contributing 4 dry erase markers to their collective classroom supply. Same thing with ziplocs, Band-Aids, tissues, and hand sanitizer. And a full ream of copy paper? From every student? It's just matter of time before students are asked to supply their own desks.

I don't remember my mom ever working from a list. If she did, I don't remember ever seeing this list. I mostly remember it being sort of up to us and our own deductive logic skills to figure a kid should probably show up to school with some pencils and paper and a backpack to carry them in. I suppose there had to have been a list, or else how would Mom have known when to start mixing in gadgets such as protractors, compasses, and graphing calculators? At any rate, I'm glad the soon-to-be fifth grader who will be receiving this backpack can bypass the list and simply show up at school ready to rock. And I hope she likes purple.