It happens every year.  No matter how many school supplies we send our kids to school with on the first day, they will always need more.

They reach into the dark recesses of their backpacks and pull out a tattered list a mile long of things they still need.  It doesn’t seem possible, since just last week I spent an hour at the store sparring with them about stuff they said they needed.

So off we trudge (with every other school age child in this town) to complete our lists.  It is bedlam.  No, it is worse than bedlam.  There are so many people that you can’t change your mind halfway down the aisle and go the other way.  People are searching, shouting, pushing, sighing, and snatching.

We enter the raging river.

“Map pencils,” my son says.  I explain that we have approximately 900 map pencils in and around our house and surely he could gather up some of those.  The look he gives me would convince my dog to adopt an orphan out of a magazine.

“Scissors,” he says.  I swear there is a scissor thief/ghost that must fly around our house and hide all the scissors.  When I need them, I can’t find them.

“Pencil box.”  Oh, come on now.  There is not a thing wrong with the pencil box he had last year, except now they have come out with “cooler” colors and designs.  I get “the look” again.

The thing is, kids think getting together school supplies for the new year is fun.  And NEW school supplies are really cool.  They act like they have won the lotto, and they actually look forward to going to school just so they can use the new cool stuff.

But here’s the real problem.  Don’t tell my kids, but I think school supplies are neat, too. I am a bonafide “office supply junkie”.  I love all the little gadgets and sticky notes that I am convinced would make my life better.  I mean, have you tried one of those do-it-yourself label makers?  It’s more fun than, well, lots of things.

So here I am at the store, trying to convince my kids to use last year’s stuff, but all the while knowing exactly what they’re feeling.  I remember when I was little and my mom would tell me to use last year’s crayons.

There’s nothing quite like a new box of crayons.  Not a single one missing or broken.  Such a pretty unsmashed box.  So bright yellow.  The ones with 64 crayons were to die for, but we had six kids my family and I never got one of those.  I think once I got 36.  I always wanted 64, though.

So I let them get new map pencils.  And scissors.  And pencil boxes.  I am a wet noodle. 

Maybe he’ll let me use his new hole puncher.

Update:  After my mom read this column, she gave me a brand new box of crayons for Christmas that year.  It had 64 untouched crayons and even a built-in sharpener.  It was the best gift ever!