Exit Stage Left

I have a frightening affection for office supplies. When I first started at the DCPA and found out I was responsible for ordering office supplies for my department I was both excited and scared. I mean, I had a pretty large budget for these supplies and a horrible addiction to ordering them. I could, theoretically, get myself fired by ordering too many rollerball pens, post-it notes or binder clips. It's something I had to be very careful about.

When I was a little kid there was absolutely nothing I loved more than going shopping for school supplies--the smell of a brand new box of crayons is still one of my favorite scents. I loved getting the list from my teachers and wandering the aisles at Target picking out the wide ruled notebook paper, #2 pencils, markers and crayons. I even remember begging for and receiving a Trapper Keeper or two in my day. At one point in high school my parents had to place a ban on my buying any more pens. I had three or four shoe boxes FULL of pens; felt tip, ballpoint, rollerball...you name the cheap pen and I had it...in about six different colors of ink. Come to think of it, where are all my pens?

When I grew up and went to college, school supplies became even more exciting; not only did I get to buy the usual products, but I was actually forced to buy books--twist my arm! Buying the calendar and notebooks specific to each course and replacing the pencil case that would hold the various shades of pens which correlated to a specific task or subject was the highlight of the year, made better by the fact that I had a charge account at the campus bookstore...perhaps this was the first insight into my financially unstable future.

I bring all this up because I was in Target the other day and wandered through the seasonal school supply section. I nearly teared up watching all the kids with their brand-new backpacks filling them with three-ring binders, 10 packs of Papermate erasable pens, colored pencils, glue, round-tip scissors and pink erasers. I wound my way through the cardboard bins and the pint-sized school kids around me filling my hand-held basket with two two-packs of Sharpies (in both fine and ultra-fine tips), a $.50 composition book and a six-pack of .5 mm Bic disposable mechanical pencils. It's worth stating that I have pretty much no use for any of these items. I must own about 50 Sharpies and enough notebooks to put myself through grad school. And, as for pencils, as much as I love them they're pretty impractical for the grown-up "real world."

When I came home I stashed my new stuff in my desk, where I'm sure they'll remain for weeks (years?) on end and I pondered what my next move should be: hitting the mall for the back to school clothes, or applying for grad school. I've decided to forgo both options for now, but one of them will most certainly happen in the near future.