Pencils! We Got Pencils!

Old Navy really needs a “husbands’ corner.” It would have some comfy chairs, a few magazines,  and maybe a television with a baseball game on or something. I’m sure it would pay for itself in a week.

It’s August, and all you parents know exactly what that means! Vacation? No, what on earth gave you that idea? August means Back To School shopping!

Yes, it does.

We worked it out – this is the last weekend we have available before school starts on September 1. All the other weekends are taken by various and sundry events that will keep us doing things that are actually fun rather than shopping for pencils and such.

So you have to seize these opportunities when they arise.

While I was out this morning negotiating with the other two professors who teach the atomic bomb class with me over what final grades to give our students (remember the old saw about how those who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either being made? Add “grading in team-taught classes” to that list), Kim spent the morning poring over the sales flyers from our local retail establishments, comparing them with the lists of required items sent home by the school district for each of the girls, and trying to figure out a way to reconcile those two things that did not involve Wal-Mart.

Kim hates Wal-Mart.

Myself, I find the place amusing, in a “the republic is doomed” kind of way, but I’m not that entertained that I’d make a point of going there if other options were available. So I was fine with alternative plans.

We managed to get the bulk of our shopping done in two stores – the first one having many sales on smaller items such as pens, folders and post-it notes, and the second having sales on larger items such as staplers, binders and copy paper. The girls even managed to squirrel in a few treats for later, depending on whether you count funky calculators and wildly patterned folders as treats. We got most of what we were looking for without destroying our bank account or visiting Wal-Mart, and that was fine.

And then we went to Old Navy for some clothes shopping.

I don’t really get the whole Old Navy thing, I just don’t. It’s a fine clothing store, as clothing stores go, and they do offer what appears to be a completely random pricing system that almost guarantees that somewhere, somehow, if you look hard enough, you can find things that you can afford.

But I am not really designed for that kind of shopping.

I’m the kind of shopper whose main goal is reducing the amount of time spent shopping. I have things on my list; I find the things on my list; I buy the things on my list; I go home. Further explorations are not on the list and just postpone the final step. So I’m not the sort of person who is going to survive well in the Old Navy environment is what I’m saying here.

Eventually Kim and the girls found the various things they wanted and the various prices they were willing to pay, and we went home.

Another successful raid for another successful school year.