Today's Rant

Today's rant is brought to you by Toys R Us. And then Target. And then Staples. And then back to Target again.

I took the boys shopping for school supplies today. While shopping for school clothes we happened to be near a Toys R Us. Armed with my supply lists I suggested we drop in to Toys R Us to see if they had any super deals. And unless Ryan wants to become a walking billboard for High School Musical 3, that was not going to happen at Toys R Us. Also, they had no supplies. They had many empty bins with room for the supplies, just no supplies.

Fine. Target was where I had intended to go anyway. After finishing up at the mall, we went across the street to Target. There Ryan found his backpack pretty easily, but he agonized over his lunchbag. Since his backpack is plain blue, I thought maybe he would want just a plain lunchbag as well. But no. After an eternity, in which all of Northgate Target now knows that I am not buying Eric a blue notebook because we have 14 notebooks at home and it's not on the supply list so don't ask me again seriously Ryan just pick a lunchbag already, Ryan settled on Spiderman. "Are you sure 3rd graders still do the character thing?" "3rd grade--yes. 4th grade NO". I guess he's been paying attention.

And then back to the supplies. Which again was a short trip because of the lack of supplies. As in, there were no pencils. Between the two boys I was suppose to buy 6 dozen pencils and I could not find one. Not one single pencil. Nor gluestick. Zero glue sticks. I needed 32 tubes of white gluestick and Target had none. And there were no crayons. You think I'm making this up, but I was one of 5 moms with horribly whiny kids roaming the ransacked aisles of the Northgate Target muttering "where is the glue....I SAID KNOCK IT OFF...there is no glue anywhere around here...".

So I bought some overpriced pencil top erasers, the wrong box of colored pencils, a package with too many highlighters, and some other random supplies that were too expensive and not quite right and told the kids we were going to a different Target.

Drove all the way back down to Renton and went to our beautiful brand new Target. On the way there I remembered the Staples that was right next door and decided to return the supplies at the new Target and try Staples. This actually proved to be a good move. Found 3/4 of our lists at Staples for a steal. Including a box of 6 dozen pencils on sale for $2.99. However, that cursed gluestick issue was beginning to rear it's ugly head again. Staples did have gluestick. And they actually did have white. But for $0.83 a tube. I can't do it. I can't spend $26 on glue. And while I'm studying the glue Ryan is next to me urgently pleading "but Mommy, it HAS to be WHITE. IT HAS TO BE". And I'm saying "there is NO WAY I'm paying $26 for glue....back to Target, kids!"

So we went next door again to the new Target and, in the school supply section, guess what we found--no glue. None. Big bottles of Elmers looking all forlorn like wallflowers at a school dance because apparently Target didn't get the memo that it's all gluesticks all the time.

And then, just for fun, we went to the office supply section. And lo and behold, glue stick. For $0.11 a tube. And I bought every package they had. I'm still short by about 10 tubes, and yes, it's the dreaded evil purple gluestick made by the devil, but you know what? It's GLUE. It's a sticky substance that NO ONE SEES. The kids don't care about the color of their gluestick and I apologize to no one for the fact that I spent $3.08 on glue rather than $23.24. Besides, I needed all that extra money to purchase 2 pairs of adult sized scissors for Ryan's class. Because apparently his teacher will need 20 extra pairs of scissors.

I'm not even done. I still have to buy hand sanitizer, Kleenix, sanitary wipes, and ziplock bags. My kids better not get even as much as a sniffle after all the antibacterial goop their teachers apparently intend to squirt on everything and everyone.

We found out the other day that Eric is in morning kindergarten and we're hoping one of these days he will learn to pronounce her name. Ryan--still no news. However, you will be happy to know that both boys are currently wearing their new school clothes for this afternoon's viewing of Hook.

That bottle of wine I finished off last night would sure come in handy right about now.