School Shopping

So today I decided that since Ella starts school in a week I should probably go out and buy the things on her school supply list. The list was nice and short and I figured Wal-Mart would be the perfect place to go since I needed a couple other things too. But oh how wrong I was. This shopping trip alone has almost convinced me that Ella needs to be homeschooled. Let me show you how things went. Here is the list and how I fared:

1 Box Ziplock bags - managed to finally find these next to the toilet paper, picked out the cheapest ones only to have them ring up wrong at the register.

3-4 Large Glue Sticks - They only had packs of six. Guess we'll have extras to keep at home.

2 Containers of Sanitized Baby Wipes - Now, do they mean anti-bacterial wipes or baby wipes? These are two different things. I'm starting to get the feeling that the person who made this list is not the brightest crayon in the box. So I grabbed the anti-bacterial wipes since I'm more concerned about the germs at school than their baby-soft butts.

4 Boxes 8-pack Crayons - We had to go to the back of the store to the seasonal section to find these. They weren't with the other art and office supplies. But we found them and they were only $.78, so we're doing good.

1 8-pack Scented Markers - Scented? Really? We're encouraging our kids to sniff markers? There were plenty of Sharpie markers in all shapes and sizes to be had in the store, but I"m pretty sure that's not the kind of scent they were going for. There were no Kindergarten level markers anywhere. None. There weren't even any empty space where they should have been. I would've settled for washable rather than scented, but no such luck. There were blendable markers, mini-markers, sparkle markers, but no plain ole marker markers. Sigh.

Facial tissues - This one was easy enough once I found them (across the aisle from the elusive Ziplocks).

1 Bottle Hand Sanitizer - There wasn't a single one in the entire store. I am at Wal-Mart, right? The king of the large middle of the aisle stacks of things like hand sanitizer? But there wasn't one. You'd think that with school coming up they would have stocked up on things like this, and markers. But I guess that's asking a bit much. I was starting to get more than a little frustrated at this point. Wal-Mart was supposed to be my one-stop shopping locale, but I'm being hindered on all sides!!

1 Plain White T-shirt - Anyone want to split a 5 pack of boys undershirts? Because that's pretty much your only choice if you need a plain shirt. I didn't buy them. I figured I'll go to Goodwill and buy whatever they have, plain white or not. It's just going to get messed up with art projects anyways, so who cares if it's white or not. Sheesh.

So that was the school list. I managed to get 5 of the 8 things. Then for the things I needed. Saline. They didn't have any of the double packs on the shelf, so I was forced to buy the much more expensive single pack. Much more expensive. Urgh. And milk. There was one carton of milk left. That's it. And it was whole milk, which we don't drink. And it was waaaay more expensive than I normally pay. So no milk for me.

I was pretty riled up by now. Add to all this trying to contain my kids the whole time we're shopping and I'm about ready to start crying in anger. Yes, I have anger management problems. I know. So I finally give up and checked out (where I discovered the overpriced Ziplocks but was too frustrated to do anything about it). I wandered outside to find it was raining. Went down the wrong aisle to find my car. Finally found the car to find that the doofus who had been parked next to me felt I needed two new spots of white paint on the side of my car along with a fresh new dent. Seriously? I'm beyond all emotion at this point. I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd been hit by an airplane on the way home.

So yeah. If this is what school shopping is like every year, that homeschooling thing may just be the answer.