A good tuck and roll

 

I remember those early days of starting school when our now-teenage son was just a little squirt. 

Making sure he had all the items on his supply list purchased.

Finding him a cool backpack and lunch box.

Shopping for new clothes and shoes.

Picking the outfit for his school photo.

Carefully labeling all his stuff because God knew he was gonna leave something on the playground, at lunch, a friend’s house, on a street corner.

Kid couldn’t hold onto a hoodie or jacket to save his life.

Years of end-of-summer rituals created and honed to make sure he was ready to go when school opened for the new year. So when I pulled up to school drop off that first day all he needed to do was unbuckle his seat belt, open the door, perform a “tuck and roll” then head off down the sidewalk and through the front door like he was King of the Universe.

I didn’t even have to bring the car to a complete stop.

Sure, the principal may have frowned a little, but you can’t fault a parent for teaching proper survival skills. You never know when a good “tuck and roll” will come in handy.

***

Annnnnd here we are today, the day before he starts his senior year of high school.

It’s 8:42 a.m.

“Hey!” I hollered out and pounded on my son’s closed bedroom door. “You got a minute?”

Thankfully our kid is a freak.

Sure, it’s still (technically) summer. However, even if he doesn’t have soccer practice, he’s usually up earlier than most kids his age.

So I’m not a complete failure as a parent.

I hear him shuffle out of bed, turn the knob and open the door. He peeks through the crack, and one eyebrow shoots up in question.

“Uh, school starts tomorrow,” I announce.

He looks at me as if this isn’t new information. So we got that going for us.

“Do you need any school supplies?” I ask with a tone that implies “Yes, it just dawned on me that school starts tomorrow. So sue me.”

He shrugs and answers with the Universal Teen Response, “I don’t know.”

I sigh. “Notebook? Pencils? Pens? Anything?”

He shrugs again and offers up, “Yeah, I guess I could use some pencils.” He stops to think. “Maybe a notebook.”

“That’s it?” I ask. “Do you want a pen?”

He muses for bit then nods. “Yeah, maybe a pen.”

Teenage boys are easy.

So here I am approximately 32 minutes later, standing in the aisle for office supplies at the store. I could have sent the teenager to do it himself, but I had other things to get.

Because no teenage boy wants to buy tampons for his mom.

I may be quirky, but I’m not cruel.

I discover that the aisle - to no one’s shock - is empty of school supplies but as tossed about as the front lawn of a frat house after a major kegger. But there aren't any empty beer bottles or vomit. Or naked people passed out.

So I suppose it could be a lot worse.

I mutter to myself about my lack of calendar awareness while picking through the empty boxes strewn across the shelves. There’s nothing to be found.

Nothing.

Son of a bitch.

I glance in my purse and start digging. I’m fairly certain I have a pen in there somewhere. Maybe the kid can use that for a while. And since I can’t find any notebooks, he can use the pen to take notes on his arm for a few days, right?

I look up from my purse to see an older woman, who had been perusing the greeting cards across the way, giving me the stink eye. The stink eye that obviously says she’s caught me. I’m THAT mom who just realized what day it was and am now shit out of luck getting school supplies for my kid.

Harsh, lady.

Harsh.

She doesn’t know me.

I’m usually VERY together with things. I renew my car tags at the beginning of the expiration month instead of waiting until the last few days. I always refill my dog’s prescription before she runs out of medicine. I do our taxes in FEBRUARY, for Christ’s sake.

I’m basically a saint.

But here I am. With Ms. Judge-y McJudgerson throwing me shade.

I grab the handle of my still-empty cart and slink down the aisle. I slowly turn the corner and WHAT THE HOLY HELL IS THIS?!

It’s the NIRVANA of school supply aisles. 

THIS aisle had everything. Notebooks. Pens. Pencils. Graph paper. Rules. Crayons. Colored pencils. And glue sticks.

So. Many. Glue. Sticks.

You name it, they had it.

Those assholes.

They had me thinking there was only one aisle of school supplies when there were TWO.

TWO!

I turned back to Ms. Judge-y McJudgerson and proudly announced in all my validated glory, “See? I’m not the only one.”

Her answering look was not pleasant. And a teeny bit on the feral side.

Ergo, the “tuck and roll” I performed to vacate the area was necessary and on point.

But not before I grabbed a package of pens from one shelf and a notebook from another.

I wasn’t going home empty handed today, folks.

Senior Year, here we come!