Dispatches From Hellpeckersville- Back To School Already?

I’m just not ready for it. I was unhappy when they first started sending the kids back to school before Labor Day, and since then it’s grown into a seething hatred. Not only because the last week in August used to be the week we got vacation, but because…why? What for? This is stupid and inconvenient. They don’t seem to get out much earlier, I can only remember one year where they had to shorten a break or add a day because of snow, so wtf?

First of all, I love summer, and I love it when the boys are home with me, so I am never anxious for that to end. Really, I always get a little depressed as back to school time nears. The minute August hits that first letter shows up with that huge list of supplies they want you to buy. Yeah, that’s what I want to do, go fight the professional parents in the aisles of the local Mart of Wal over the dwindling supply of Duo-Tang folders. one thing I really liked about that little Catholic school Baboo attended, they had a list, but theirs was filled by them at a bulk discount and we got a bill. No worries over crap being picked out, getting the wrong thing, or over-priced garbage. I guess public schools are too big to do something like that? I don’t know, but I would think they’d get a great discount if they did.

This year the kids aren’t half as unhappy as I am. Hell, Baboo seems eager to go back. I don’t remember ever feeling that way…whose kid is this? Sure, I missed some of my friends, but getting to see them, for me, was consolation for having to go back, not just another “great thing” that was going to happen before Labor Day. I don’t get it, but school was never my favorite thing.

Summer is the only season whose end can bring me down. That was true before I ever had kids. The other three seasons can end and I don’t give a hot damn. That’s not quite true, I do feel a little happy when winter is done, but it almost never feels like it is, so it’s not like I throw a party. I don’t want to soft nights and sunny days to end. I don’t want to not be able to float around that silly little pool we have out back. Fall is a bummer, and that’s what I call it, never autumn, because it feels like a dark thing that falls right on me.

It hasn’t been an easy summer, my mom died, Cleetus followed that with a epic case of gastritis that lasted a couple of weeks, and we never did get our income tax return. All the things I promised the kids if and when it came? November, kids…they promise. Pffft. Still, it’s over too soon. We didn’t get to do half the things we wanted to do, or I should say I didn’t. I wanted to give the kids some fun, some good times in spite of everything else. I failed for the most part, not for lack of trying, things just didn’t work out. The kids are so resilient, they’re okay with the summer they had. Me? Not so much.