Getting ready for school
Writing a column every week can be a challenge. Some weeks the idea comes out fully formed. Other weeks it's just a jumble of miscellaneous thoughts that don't really have a direction or message.
Our time the past week or so has been consumed with getting ready for school. It used to be so much easier.
When the girls were younger, the month of August had a routine progression. The first week we focused our attention on the county fair. We spent the week shuttling the girls and their friends back and forth to Hillsboro so they could go to the carnival and "hang out."
After the fair was over, we got down to the business of "getting ready for school." At the time I thought it was an unnecessarily complicated procedure. After all, it was just a matter of buying a couple of notebooks and pencils, new jeans and shoes. Right? Oh, those were the good ol' days.
Little did I realize the process of "getting ready for school" could get so complicated — or expensive.
Daughter #1 is super-organized and I'm not so sure that's a blessing. We've spent the summer making lists and checking them two, three, four times. We've covered every item needed for a dorm room from A-Z. In fact, I think we've bought enough equipment to furnish several rooms. However, she assures me she has "everything she needs" — and probably a lot of stuff she doesn't.
If we'd stopped at furnishing a dorm room I would have been happy. But no, that was the easy part.
We went computer shopping. There actually is a brochure called "Buying a Computer for Your College Student." It's supposed to make it easier for harried parents still shell-shocked from making the tuition payment to get what is needed without all the extra bells and whistles.
What it doesn't tell you is to beware of the 12-year-old salesman at the computer store who wants to sell your daughter the "super deluxe" model that can download a bazillion games and enough music to last through her entire college career.
Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and we got "just what she needed" — I think.
Of course, after we bought the initial just-what-you-need computer, the 12-year-old salesman and his 15-year-old manager dropped the bombshell about what the computer package didn't include. Like usable software, a printer, printer cable, or the all-important service plan.
As I signed the credit card slip, I was convinced we would have been better off — and money ahead — if we'd just sent her back to kindergarten.
On the way home, as she was going through her list — again — she breathed an audible sigh of relief and assured me, "Mom, I think I have everything I need!"
Notebooks and pencils, indeed. Those were the good ol' days.
— DONNA BERNHARDT
