School supplies

I LOVE LOVE LOVE school/office supplies! I could go to Staples and easily spend an hour, lusting after pens and markers and paper. However, I don't like HAVING to buy school supplies, especially when you are hunting the sale. Normally, sale shopping is the only thing that makes sense to me. I refuse to pay full price for nearly anything.

Walmart has school supplies on sale crazy cheap this week (glue for 20 cents, markers for 88, etc) and I thought "C is going to need all this stuff in a few weeks, might as well get it while it is on sale" What a pain that turned out to be. We went on Sunday afternoon (the day the sale started) and found that they were out of markers and scissors and only had one suitable backpack (everything else was either pukey pink or 14.96, instead of 6.96) Fortunately, C digs Spiderman so it was ok and the one he actually picked out. Also fortunately, there was another brand of blunt nosed scissors that was regularly priced, cheaper then the sale scissors. So I was able to get those and all the glue (he needs 12 craploads of glue for school) he needs. We went back today and bought the last box of classic color markers they had (they had some pastels, but only one box of them). Major PITA.

A secondary rant to buying school supplies is the supplies I'm expected to buy. They are asking for Ziplock bags, Clorox wipes and Kleenex. IMO, those are things the school should supply. The bags, I sort of get because they do the "book in a bag" program and the bags are to protect the books and keep everything together. I imagine they get beat up fast. But Clorox wipes? I really don't think so. I'm sending some because dh practically begged me not to start out as a trouble maker. The other thing? The supply list wants several bottles of glue, glue sticks etc and then says "don't put your name on this stuff, we'll share" Again, I think not. I'm labelling EVERYTHING, including individual markers. I bought decent stuff for MY CHILD and I'm not having him using crap because someone else decided to buy junk. Selfish? Maybe, but I don't have a ton of money to spend and I am providing for my children, not everyone else.