A bit of life by B: School supply lists

 

By Brittany Herren

Part-time writer, full-time mom of three

As a parent, there are two days each year that I dread: Teacher emancipation, otherwise known as the last day of school, and the day the school supply lists are published online. The latter being ostensibly worse and how I know that an iced shot of 1800 Blanco pairs nicely with any detailed enumeration of all things mythically academic. While I’m not particularly advocating to unleash a wild herd of drunk parents throughout Savannah, I do recommend shopping responsibly with a licensed and sober adult while you attempt to locate each carefully considered object of your education overload’s desires.

While this reads as exaggerated ramblings of a mother whose made her way through a school year or two, I assure you that there’s a reason the Target on Abercorn puts the back-to-school section in the farthest corner of the store just a few aisles away from the wine. It’s so our nervous breakdowns don’t disturb the other customers. I have personally witnessed one mom lose it because she couldn’t find a pack of just seven Elmer’s glue sticks. Six? Sure. Eight? It exists. Seven? It’s as rare as hen’s teeth. Sure, you could just buy the pack of eight and call it a day, but paying for the extra, unnecessary tube of paste? Not on your honor.

You think that sounds crazy? You don’t know crazy. Crazy is trying to find a teal, four-pronged folder. You may be wondering, what kind of notebook paper has four holes? None, that is why you also need to purchase a four-hole punch. That’s right, we make our own paper now because

the natural habitat of the Boreal owl who makes their home in softwood coniferous trees from which paper is typically made is more important than your last shred of sanity. If you’re gasping and wondering about the owls, don’t worry, you will also be strongarmed into participating in a fundraiser two weeks before Christmas to fund the re-planting of the trees that your child’s paper has presumably killed. It’s easy, all you must do is sell 200 tubs of cookie dough to all your closest family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers, Facebook acquaintances, patrons of your local nail salon, fellow church members and Randy who power washes your house twice a year. You could be that one parent who chooses not to participate, but then your kid becomes the poster child for populist anti-environmentalism because they are the only one without a little, rubber bracelet that reads, “I give a hoot.”

 

Don’t believe me? Peruse the most notable items on my own children’s lists:

• One box of Ticonderoga pencils. Ticonderoga is a brand which is preferred by teachers because, and I’m quoting the Ticonderoga website, “they’re constructed of premium wood from responsibly managed forests and engineered to sharpen easily with minimal breakage. They also include a silky lacquer coating for a soft smooth feel.” A 30-count box will set you back $5.99, while their Target-brand counterpart is only 99 cents.

• One box, gallon sized. How does one determine if that Amazon box that’s been sitting in your garage is one gallon? You simply calculate the volume of the box in cubic inches and then convert it to gallons with the following steps:

1. Measure the box’s length, width, and height in inches using a ruler or tape measure.
   1. Multiply the length, width, and height together to calculate the volume in cubic inches. For example, if a box is 10 inches long, 5 inches wide, and 4 inches high, its volume would be 200 cubic inches (10 x 5 x 4).
   1. Multiply the cubic inches by 7.47 to convert it to gallons.

• One 3×5 family picture on glossy paper. I’m divorced from my son’s father, so what I like to do is stage a family portrait using my iPhone and a tower of cookbooks as a camera stand, then have my husband stand with his arm around an invisible person. After I print the picture at CVS, I get a sharpie and draw my ex-husband next to my husband. He’s usually a stick-figure, but it gets the point across.

• One, two-pocket, three-prong poly-folder. This sounds simple enough, but you must be careful not to muck up and get a plastic folder. You see, poly folders are made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and plastic folders are made from polypropylene, which is bad because they are not biodegradable and the production releases toxic chemicals into the air, which causes air pollution, which in turn (you guessed it), is bad for the Boreal owls.

The list goes on and on with other crazy items like a container of antibacterial wipes that have been blessed and contain holy water, Starbucks gift card for the teacher and dried sage to “cleanse the classroom of negative energy,” their words, not mine.

As if the general school list isn’t bad enough, you also have your specific teacher’s supply list and Amazon wish list for classroom décor items. Last year, I bought my son’s teacher a rug because she needed it for her meditation corner, which she used in lieu of timeout. Then, don’t forget about all the special days you have to dress your kid up for like red ribbon week, twin day, 12-days of Christmas, superhero day, hat day, Dr. Seuss’s birthday, wacky hair day, 100^th day of school and so on. However, the school doesn’t notify you of these days until the night before, so you just guess and make a stockpile of general items you think might come in handy.

If you are having visions of Harry Potter making his way through Diagon Alley with Hagrid, you are spot on. That is almost exactly what school supply shopping is like, except Potter had an advantage in that his admission letter and list were delivered to him directly and I had to scour the school’s website for the 2024-2025 list that was hidden like an Easter egg among lists of previous years.

If you think this sounds ridiculous, just imagine how parents in Savannah feel right now. To add insult to injury, the Savannah-Chatham County Board of Public Education just approved the new school year’s budget for $622 million, and not a single dollar was allocated to tissues. That’s right, it’s on the list.