Thursday, August 6, 2009

Thursday Thoughts- Stupidity or Sheer Brilliance?

It's that time of the week- Thursday Thoughts. :-) A dangerous place to be, inside my head, that is.  You just never know what you're gonna get.

This week we went shopping for school supplies. My children are elementary age, and if you have children that age, you know about THE LIST.  Yes, THE LIST. Seems to grow every year. And quite specific, mind you. Why each child needs three packages of markers, and colored pencils, and crayons I will never know . I'm not in the classroom, but I suppose there is a rhyme and reason to it. And make sure those folders are pockets only, please, and that the scissors are blunt or sharp tipped.  By the time you add it all up (their personal supplies and the CLASSROOM supplies. . . paper towels, kleenex and the like) you've spent about $80 on two children. This did, however, include one new backpack and one new lunch box. 

Is you have gone through this before, you will also know that trying to get the list done, with children in tow, in the midst of many other families doing the same, you will know that by the time you get out of the store, you are just a little more than crazy.

Which brings me to my point. I took the kids to a store where I could get everything. It was not a convenience store, but a well-known, national chain.  Going up and down the aisles and in between were school supplies beyond necessity. However, smack dab in the middle was an aisle of all wine and hard liquor. A full aisle of wine and alcohol as far as the eye could see, settled quite in the middle of the school supplies aisles.

I can not decide if this was sheer stupidity or a brilliant marketing ploy to increase alcohol sales. Because heaven knows, after what I spent, and what it took to find everything on that list, I was certainly wishing for something to ease my nerves. 

Yours, thinking it was a brilliant marketing ploy,

Melissa

2 comments:

  1. Your story is why I love the wrap-pack program the PTO does at my son's school. You pay the PTO for what your child(ren) need, they buy it all and deliver it to the classroom. No shopping hassles and no lugging 25 lb. backpacks full of supplies on the first day of school. Having tried school supply shopping once, I knew I couldn't pass up the wrap-pack program ever again!

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  2. Dawn- Guess who is in charge of the Wrap-Pack Committee this year? YUP. Don't really know how that happened but I can roll with it. Let's hope I don't get overwhelmed. And maybe, just maybe, I'll order a couple myself for next year.

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