Back to School!

Oh, the back to school frenzy!!


  The summer is over (albeit a crappy one) and everyone needs new EVERYTHING to start off the school year.  I'm not sure why or when this became a rule, because I'm pretty sure you can still learn math even if you are wearing 3 month old jeans.  Anyway, I lug my 14 year old son to the mall to try and find jeans.  Now, shopping with a 14 year old boy is painful enough, but I get the added pleasure of trying to find a size of jeans that does not exist anywhere.  He is 6'1" and has a 28 inch waist (I know... I hate him too)  So this requires him to have an inseam of about 35 or so.  I dare you to go into any clothing store and ask the first employee you see (preferably one that is 15 and works only 4hrs week.  Just to mess with their head) and ask for a size 28-35.  Now, if I were working there and someone asked me for this particular size I would reply, "Sorry, we do not make clothing for snakes", but I understand that people generally have a filter that stops comments such as these before they leave their mouths.  I, alas, was born without a filter.  It is a real medical condition...trust me.  So we search through a mountain of denim trying to find something that will sort of fit.  We find a pair of 30-34.  He tries them on and with the help of a generous belt, they will work!  Of course they are just long enough and he will likely outgrow them before we leave the mall and get back to my truck, but they fit and we have to buy them.  Never mind the fact that they look like they have been worn by a guy working on the rigs for a week without washing them and then thrown into a cage with denim hungry tigers.  Why do the tigers like to eat holes in the jeans?  I don't know, THEY JUST DO!!!  So with the hardest part behind us I try and focus on shirts.  I wasn't aware of this until that moment, but apparently I have awful taste.  Every shirt I suggest is either greeted with an eye roll accompanied by a scrunched up 'Are-you-freakin-kidding-me' face or a comment something along the lines of "I'd rather go to school naked in January".  So I give up and let the boy pick out his own shirts.  I kid you not, he walked by the table, grabbed every second one down the line and said he was done.  Seriously??  The ones I chose were too dorky but having his boxers visible through the holes in his new jeans isn't?  Fine... we head to the till and I get to pay a massive amount of money for a pair of dirty looking ripped up jeans and random t-shirts I'm fairly certain I could've picked out.  Hooray!  We are done!  (Except for having to find a pair of non-dorky running shoes in a size 12... but that's a whole other story)  We haul everything back home and he tosses it on his bed... oh, soooo thrilled he has new clothes for school.  I am just relieved THAT is over! 

  I sit quietly for a moment when I hear my 13 year daughter come in ,"Hey Mom...when are we going shopping for my school clothes?" 


 I break out in a cold sweat; and everything goes black.