School Supplies + Mo = True Love

My husband and I stopped into Walmart today on our way to the Post Office. There were 2 things on my shopping list: Skirt hangers & a specific shade of OPI nail polish. Sadly, Walmart does not sell OPI and my quest for the shade "Got a Date To-Knight" is still on. I did find myself a bunch of new hangers which will aid in my never-ending quest to perfectly organize my closet.

Why am I telling you about my mundane, uneventful journey to Walmart? BACK TO SCHOOL SHOPPING. It slaps you in the face as you walk into Walmart, Target, or any major store and makes me wish I could be back in school.

I have always loved back to school shopping. Not the kind of love I have for hangers or chips and salsa, but the kind of love that makes you giddy as a school girl, that makes it impossible to sleep at night, that makes your hands shake as the day Mom has designated as back to school shopping day draws near. This isn't back to school clothes shopping that I'm referring to, however. No, that shopping was left to kids who went to public school and had the option of jeans and fun t-shirts every day. I'm talking supplies. Folders, notebooks, pens, pencils, erasers, colored pencils, pencil cases, everything.

I used to immediately scan my list of necessary items for each class with sheer bliss. What color 1-in binder for Social Studies will I get this year? What color book covers should I get for my textbooks? Do I want to write in blue or black ink? Should I get gel pens to decorate my covers or a stash of Yikes! pencils? Do I get a Lisa Frank folder or a Trapper Keeper? (Yes, I went to middle school in 90s. Jealous, much?)

The options were endless! As I grew older and went to high school, I was forced to fit in and buy less exciting folders and binders. This didn't squelch my excitement for back to school shopping, though. I still heavily weighed the benefits of a green binder for Biology and a red binder for Math. Even in college I spent far too long in the school supplies section of the book store debating whether I wanted a yellow folder or a red folder to carry my notes in.

Now that I'm graduated, I won't get the excitement of back to school shopping until I have children of my own. I hope that at least one of them gets as excited as I do. Then again, if they don't want to pick out their supplies I'll have to color coordinate their Earth Science notebooks for them! For now, I must satisfy my craving for office supplies by stocking up my home office with colorful pens, Moleskine notebooks of various sizes, and post-it notes galore.

Where's Lisa Frank now? The woman knew her target market so well.