Love those school supplies

Some people love to shop for jewelry. Other love shoe shopping. But there's no way those jaunts compare to back-to-school shopping extravaganzas.

Perhaps it's because I'm a writer, but I cannot resist the siren's call of the spiral notebook or a thick, three-subject composition notebook.

My love of back-to-school supply shopping dates back to my elementary days. Long before the first day of school, I had my book sack packed with a Big Chief tablet, a few No. 2 pencils and a wooden ruler with inches, not centimeters.

Everyone had the eight-pack package of crayons as those were the affordable choice at the downtown Kresge's. I could only dream about having the box with 64-colors featuring a built-in sharpener.

Glue came in a dark, brown bottle, not a tube or stick, and I spent quite a few hours keeping myself amused by smearing glue over my hand and then peeling it off like skin, my imagination running away as I dreamed I was a secret agent like James Bond and being tortured by the Communists.

Inevitably, Sister Adrian noticed what I was doing and took away the glue, rapped the back of my hand with my wooden ruler and my daydreaming came to an abrupt end.

But there were other treasures in my sack, including a big, pink eraser and fancy Bic pens. When Bic pens first entered the market, we were mesmerized by the inexpensive ball-point pens. Best of all, we learned to take the ink cartridge out and turn the plastic barrel into a spitball launcher.

Today's student can still write in plain composition books, the ones with the white specks on a black background. We had to be quite careful with those books as the teacher could tell if we ripped a page out, usually to make a spitball.

Instead of plain, vanilla folders and three-ring binders covered with a blue material-type substance, modern fancy portfolios, as they're called, have pockets, zippers and hidden compartments where one can hide lunch money and all the passwords for school accounts.

Treasures abound in the school supply aisle. Highlighters come in a variety of bold or pastel colors. Need loose-leaf paper? I'm still drawn to the the wide-ruled style because we quickly learned we could jot down fewer words yet still look like we'd written the Great American Novel.

Then there are all the fun extras on the school shopping aisle. There are Post-It Notes in every color of the rainbow and backpacks in all styles, designs and shapes.

No more gray metal lunch pails to carry our bologna sandwiches wrapped in wax paper. These new plastic lunch boxes are durable enough to serve as a stepping stool, a tool to whack your brother or an impromptu third base.

And although it's hard to improve on a pink eraser or a plastic protractor, modern supplies dazzle the mind. Plain school supplies now share shelf space with external hard drives, memory sticks, blank CD's, mirrors and shelves for school lockers and tape dispensers in all colors and shapes.

There's no end to the wonders and marvels on the school supply list, and my writer's heart rejoices when I find a highlighter in a fluorescent green, a new ink pen that glides across the paper and an inexpensive device that can record voices and seamlessly play them back.

You can keep the electronics and home-goods aisles. I'm happy testing the purple and aqua blue pens, so until the sales are over, I'll be loading up until next August.

This article was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.