Back To School

It’s that time of year again, when we get to send our kids back to school and our grocery bills quit looking like The National Debt because there’s nobody at home during the day to eat EVERYTHING.

Shane started half days at his Tech program last week but this week, he’ll also be starting his half days of “regular” high school. It’s hard to believe he’s a Junior and that in just two short years, he’ll be a high school graduate with a certification in Multimedia Design. If he makes it through. Let us all bow our heads and pray.

Don’t ask me what Multimedia Design is. When I was his age, in 1988, I thought I was hot shit with my Apple II C personal computer, complete with a green screen, 56K of memory and all the five inch floppy disks I needed to save my word processing homework.

All I know is he’ll know how to do stuff on the computer and can create web pages, build social media accounts for businesses, create advertising and make videos and mini-movies.

You know. Stuff he already knows how to do because apparently he’s a minor celebrity on the Tik Tok app with almost 10,000 followers. If you’re curious, you can find him under the name 3lectr4in.

Hell if I know what the fuck that is.

Anyway, as he embarks on this last chapter of his formal education, our youngest granddaughter, Brooklin, is embarking on the beginning of hers. She started Pre-K this week and we were all a little afraid of how she was going to react because she’s very much a Mommy’s girl and Mommy has always stayed at home with her.

Apparently, she marched right in, gave Mommy and Daddy a kiss, and then headed straight over to a table to play with Mr. Potato Head.

Which apparently, used to not be a plastic potato. According to The Husband Dude, at one time, you bought the arms, legs, mouth and pipe at the store but then you had to supply your own potato to stick them on.

An actual, grown-in-the-ground-spud.

I guess that explains where the idea of making a plastic potato to stick accessories on came from. Now I’m just curious who thought it was a good idea to put eyes and lips on a vegetable.

But I digress…

I don’t know whether to feel admiration or pity for parents these days and the attention to detail that is now required for every occasion, including the first day of school. There is, of course, the First Day of School Outfit which is very important for The First Day of School Picture, which isn’t just a picture of your kid in front of the house. Now The First Day of School Picture requires wearing the Brand New Backpack, The First Day of School Outfit and holding a chalkboard sign that declares “The First Day of School”.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s adorable. They’ll make great keepsakes. I LOVE looking at everyone’s pictures!

But….I can’t help but think how much pressure it all is. I mean, I guess it’s better than back in my day. My mother had a job outside the house so the first day of school at our house usually consisted of Mom running around frantically trying to get ready and get us ready. This usually consisted of her yelling at my brother to get his ass out of bed and then brushing my hair as close to my scalp as possible with the sharpest hairbrush she could find before tying it in a skin-tight ponytail using these torture devices that would leave a knot on your head if they slipped out of her grip.

Which they did. All the time.

Mom only took us to school on the first day (we walked all the other days). I don’t think she ever stopped to take a photo because that would involve digging out the Kodak camera from it’s drawer in the living room bookcase and then manually attaching a flash if we were going to take a picture inside. We wouldn’t even see the picture until the whole roll of film got used up and developed, which if we were lucky, would be sometime after Christmas.

She didn’t have time for that shit.

She had to drop us hurriedly off at our classrooms so that she could get across town to the school where she taught and greet her own students on their first day. That was pretty much it.

My own experience as a working mother trying to get a kid off to school on the first day is ripped directly out of the pages of my mother’s manual. You can usually find me yelling at Shane to get his ass out of bed while doing my own hair, minus the torture devices. I do stop to take a picture on the first day, but only because I can take one with my phone and it only takes a few seconds.

There are no cute chalkboard signs. There might be a squirt of Febreeze as he walks out the door when I discover he’s wearing the same shirt three days in a row.

That’s if I have time to get the Febreeze.

In other news…The Husband Dude spent this weekend marking the ten year anniversary of the death of Patrick Swayze. The Husband Dude watched his two favorites: Road House and Point Break, which I don’t mind because Swayze is pretty to look at but my two boyfriends, Sam Elliott and Keaneu Reeves are in those movies as well.

Me: I don’t care that Sam Elliott is old enough to be my father and almost old enough to be my grandfather. He’s hot. I’d do him.

THD: I like women, but even I’d do Sam Elliott.

Me: Don’t forget that Swayze documentary is on tonight. I don’t know what time.

THD: I’ll check. (Picks up his phone and speaks into it) Alexa, what time is the Patrick Swayze documentary?

Me: Babe. You don’t have Alexa on your phone.

THD: Siri, what time is the Patrick Swayze documentary?

Me: Babe. You don’t have an iPhone; therefore, you don’t have Siri.

THD:

Also THD: Jeeves, what time is the Patrick Swayze documentary on?

Me: Did you just Ask Jeeves?

THD: Yes. Yes I did.

Me:

I don’t have an ending to this story other than to say, I’m glad I’m only 56K-Floppy-Disk-old and not Mr.-Potato-Head-Real-Potato-old.

Stay weird, my friends. Normal is boring.