Why I hate shopping for school supplies

Does anyone else hate shopping for school supplies? It's like going to the electric chair, only I do it annually.

My wife and I usually buy our son’s school supplies several weeks before school starts. No such luck this year— his school gave us only a few days.

Once we received the list, we nearly went into shock— it seemed endless.

Our son needed markers, papers, binders, folders, pencils, a ruler, pencil sharpener, calculator, and a partridge in a pear tree.

We found most of the items without a hitch. The worst part was trying to find the required two inch clear binders. We found many one and three inch binders, but no two inch ones.

Apparently, every other kid in the city also needed two inch binders.

Soccer mom buzzards had bought everything and left nothing but bones and scraps.

In one store, we found a secret stash of two inch binders. I wondered how this stash avoided the watchful eyes of the vultures.

As I got closer, I found out why these binders were still on the shelf.

The $7 price tag per binder kept the soccer mom vultures away — they also kept us away.

My son needed six binders and I was not going to spend $42 for binders that would be unrecognizable before the end of the school year. We went to the Dollar General store and found 1.5 inch binders for $3 each. I didn’t care what the supply list required. I bought the 1.5 inch binders and saved myself $4 per binder.

My son would have to live with less folder space.

We spent the afternoon getting shoved, stepped on, and beaten down. But we managed to find every school supply on the scavenger hunt list. I came to the conclusion that a school supply list is nothing more than a license to legally mug other parents.

Did I mention how much I hate shopping for school supplies?