The Back-to-School Primer

It's never too early to think about back-to-school time, especially when they tend to start the back-to-school sales about two weeks after school ENDS. So in that spirit, and also to rub in the fact I no longer have to worry about this stuff cuz I'm DONE with school, I present the authoritative guide to preparing for the new school year. The authority, of course, being me.

First, you need clothes. I know, I know, some of you think school supplies should come first, but trust me, there's no point in even going to school if you are not dressed correctly. The only question is what is considered dressing correctly? I didn't try to figure that out too much in my younger years, and paid dearly for it. So, I went with a standard setup that was guaranteed to never go out of style. Jeans and a t-shirt/sweatshirt/polo shirt. When in the last 40 years have jeans EVER been out of style? Of course, nowadays, they have solved that problem by guaranteeing that if you just wear conventional blue jeans, you are STILL out of style. Now, you gotta wear bell-bottoms or have the slit up the back of the bottom or whatever the hell it is now.

And of course, to be in style is beyond important these days when everywhere you look, people are yelling in your face from the TV that you MUST wear these clothes. Or else. Now all I know is if I'm a kid in high school these days, I don't wanna know what the "or else" is. I have previously theorized (in my very first column, actually) that the way fashion trends are decided is probably through the very scientific method known as throwing darts at a dartboard. Apparently, someone at Old Navy did this and decided, "Hey, let's bring back every bad fashion idea from the 70s!" Cuz sure enough, I see Old Navy ads on TV with people dressed like they just stepped out of the Brady Bunch. Now I know that retro is all the rage, but BAD retro is a totally different thing. And then when you run out of ideas, improvise; after all, though necessity is the mother of invention, laziness has to be the father. In past years, tank tops were the rage, then halter tops, then back to tank tops, so when you need a new fad, well hell, how about tops with ONE shoulder? Bingo, this summer's big fashion trend. Think of it as the fashion version of my earlier theory about cars, the one my dad initially came up with: "if it's not selling, add a door". In this case, if it's not selling, add a shoulder.

Now I should add here that it is much different for college students. Not the fashion, mind you, but the priorities in what to get first for back-to-school. High school students get clothes first, because clothes are most important; college students get a CAR first, because as much as clothes are the status symbol for high schoolers, the car you drive is even more so the status symbol for college students.

OK, now you've got your clothes and/or car, now for the actual school supplies. You gotta have something to carry stuff in, first of all. It won't be a backpack, seeing as how most high schools now believe that all of America's high schoolers are potential Columbine types who carry guns and explosives in their backpacks instead of books and pencils. So now backpacks and gym bags aren't marketed and instead you get carry-ons, kinda like a junior briefcase. Perfect size and dimensions to carry books and ONLY books. Of course, the first time someone smuggles a pistol into school in one of those things, they'll be banned, too, but I digress.

Like the carry-on, many ideas for useful products evolve from the trends of the past. Remember the Trapper Keeper? All of us who went to school in the 80s remember them, we swore by them, lived by them, beat them up, but that was the point. You could beat the crap out of these things and they'd hold up, and they held everything. So, this has evolved to the new fad which is these all-in-one three ring binder thingies that hold everything, cuz they got a zipper around the end, so you can zip it up and keep everything inside. I don't know what it's called, but they're all the rage and a must-have, and they're every bit as durable as that good ol' Trapper Keeper. Plus you don't have to buy the folders with your favorite pop star/celebrity athlete that went inside the Trapper Keeper. That was the only bad part about it, because by Christmas vacation, either the folders had been worn to the point that they fell off the rings or you had to throw them out because you favorite athlete had been traded or your fave pop star had fallen out of the limelight. Betcha those New Kids on the Block folders would fetch a good price on eBay these days, though.

Another prerequisite is the ridiculously expensive calculator. This trend started during my high school days, and the more advanced the class, the more expensive the calculator. The thing has to make graphs, figure out equations, all that good stuff, so that sets your folks back into triple digits. And if it's still like my experience was, you'll get more use out of it creating stupid games with it and playing them with your friends than you ever would actually doing the actual math work.

So now that you've spent upwards of a thousand dollars (most likely of your parents money), you're ready to go back to school, and your parents are rethinking all the happy thoughts they had of you going back to school and being out of their hair for a while. But it's over with and now you go back into the hellmouth that is our modern school system and try to make the best of it...

...for about two months and then your clothes are out of style and your school supplies are missing, given away, or busted/worn and you find yourself hitting your folks up for MORE money....