The Worst Day Of School

I was always able to estimate how much summer vacation was left when my mother would ask me the much anticipated and dreaded question “Do you want to go shopping for school shoes today?” After a while my mom realized I was never going to answer a joyful yes to that question so she learned to just tell me when we were going shopping for shoes. I was very thankful I went to catholic school due to the fact we had uniforms which limited my clothes shopping big time. Am I coming across like I don’t like clothes shopping? Good, because ‘til this day I don’t even enjoy going shopping for socks. In fact, I dread taking my kids clothes shopping because I get flashbacks of when I was their age. This is where most men are thankful for a sporting goods store in the mall when they take their family shopping, “Ok, I will be in ABC sporting goods store while you shop. Meet me there when you are done.” Anyway, the “back to school” stuff usually came out in August which made me realize I only had one more month before school started. Now it comes out in July which I am not sure why but I would have liked this back when I was in school because I would then have two months left ‘til school. I also had to do three book reports before school started which limited my outdoor activity in the month of August. The week before was a real gut wrencher. The jitters of starting a whole new, full year would begin to take over. The day before school started I would put my fresh new sharpened pencils in my nerdy pencil case (nothing against the nerdy pencil case) along with my new black and white marble notebooks in my new school bag. The smell of a fresh new year almost made me vomit. You know the smell of new books, new book bag, stiff uniform and a clean class room. It’s certainly not as enjoyable as the new car smell. Anyway, I would get so nervous, for what reason ‘til this day I am not sure. I guess the start of a long new school year made me nervous, the fear of not knowing what to fully expect. It seemed that the worst day of school was the first day. I just wanted to get to school, get my books, see my friends and start my routine. That went on for a few years until I realized it is the same every year and I always adapted to a new year just fine. I try and teach my children that same thing when a new school year begins for them but it seems, in an adults eyes, that kids adapt just fine and they do, but I wish I knew what was going on inside their little minds. It is probably the same things that went on in my little mind.

As I look back, for a short while and only a short while, I wish I could go back to school on that first day and take a whiff of what that new year smells like.