Toney and I were in Target a few days ago, and they have all their back-to-school stuff out. Man, I used to hate that crap when I was actually in school. It was a foul wind blowing off the waste treatment plant of life. But now? I’m a huge fan. I love office supplies. I look at them on Amazon, and I sometimes pop into Staples just to check out their ballpoint pen selection. Is that weird? I’m also a complete sucker for notebooks. I have stacks of them in the bunker, and continue to acquire the things. Occasionally I even splurge on the expensive kind, straight outta France. Which, by the way, are even better than Moleskine, in my opinion. Yes, I spend way too much money on that kind of stuff.
Anyway, we were looking at the notebooks at Target, and they have a bunch with stoopid motivational sayings on the front. Probably marketed to Middle School kids… I can’t remember any specifics, but they’re real eye-rollers, believe me. Or, in some cases, completely incomprehensible.
And I told Toney they should have notebooks with my old August back-to-school motto: This Year Is Going To Be Different! Every year I made that promise to myself. Sometimes I was thinking about academics. I was certainly capable of being a good student, but never put forth one ounce of effort beyond whatever it took to get a C. Unless, of course, I actually enjoyed the class. And that was rare. But often my private August proclamation had to do with the social aspect of school. I would ease back on all the defensive sarcasm, I vowed, and become more of a normal human being. This year things are going to be different, dammit!
Yeah… Fast forward one month and I’m in danger of failing two of my classes, due to chronic half-assery, and I have in-school suspension because I told somebody in fourth-period French they look like a duck with Down Syndrome, or whatever. Ahhhh, it’s the circle of life. Next August it’ll start all over again.
Now I’m going straight to the questions. I got no time for jibber-jabber…
In the comments section, please tell us what a real-life back-to-school notebook motto would be. This is a stretch, I know. But all that feel-good bullshit on the actual notebooks makes me wanna puke. Let’s bring some reality back to this bitch.
Also, what do you believe you spend way too much money on? Do you have anything on that? The other day I saw these giant Moleskine notebooks at Sam’s Club, two packaged together, and I can’t stop thinking about them. It’s a sickness, I tell you. It costs $25 for the pair, and I sure as shit don’t need them. Do you have anything like that? Bring us up to date on it, won’t you? Previously, I would’ve said alcohol. Most definitely.
And I need to go to work now, my friends.
I’ll see you again on Monday.
Have a great weekend!
Now playing in the bunker
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First dammit!
I have no comment on the motto crap… Just give me a plain notebook that I can, and did, decorate and fill with my own stuff.
I love GLPs!!! Groovy Little Pads, those small spiral notebooks that fit in your pocket.
“Your life doesn’t suck, Karen. You know what does? Car payments and gonorrhea. Now do your damn homework.”
“Homework sucks, but so does minimum wage.”
“Johnny doesn’t give a shit about you.”
“You know damn well ‘Billy <3 Jenny Forever' is a lie."
"Get your shit together, son. Ain't no girl eyeing the scrubs."
"Who are you kidding? You'll never pass this class."
"Instead of reaching for the stars, you should be reaching for a Burger King application. #realisticgoals"
I spend a lot of money on stickers. I just like them a lot.
Nice.
I spend way too much money on everything… taxes are the biggest single expense, but I tend to go over budget on everything because budgets just always have a way of being annoying. I was talking about this with someone a month or so ago and found myself saying “It’s easier to just make more money than it is to control spending.”
On my “Big Chief” lined tablet, the motto, “What was good enough for daddy is more than I can expect.”
Too much money for cable tv, internet + phone; health insurance premiums are unbelievable….
The cable bill makes me cringe every month. $70 a month (which I know is cheap) just to watch Big Bang reruns.
OTA, my brother. Not saying all the channels are exciting, not saying TBBT is available on any of them, but I’ve adopted a futball team in southern Mexico, my Korean is coming along nicely, and I STILL can’t generate the slightest interest in Sumo. So it goes.
John
We will all be dead in 200 years.
Maybe less than 3 1/2.
“Don’t get knocked up”
“Don’t get her knocked up.”
“”Learning this shit can win you big money on Jeopardy!”
“Your bestie will hate you in 10 years”
I also LOVE office supplies. I miss those mom and pop stationary stores where you could wander up and down the aisles looking at all the merchandise. Staples just feels cold to me. There’s absolutely no warmth at all to that store.
I spend too much money on wine. In fact, I need to stop for a case tonight!
I only go into stationary stores; it’s too hard when they’re moving.
Nice catch.
LOL – I KNEW I had that wrong… thanks for pointing that out. Where’s my eraser???
My favorite eraser is a Staedtler Mars Plastic. Yes, I have a favorite eraser.
Funny-I have a favorite eraser – when saw your comment I looked at it and it was the same.
Yeah, it’s hard to beat the Staedtler Mars Plastic, but it CAN tear a small, horizontal hole in a Big Chief tablet. I just wish Nokian made Hakkapeliitta-brand erasers. The world needs a good all-weather eraser and several other things.
jtb
I hate “Back to School” everything. It’s the sign of the end of glorious summer, and the beginning of the drudgery that is school and the impending winter which follows.
Exactly, especially up here in New England.
Wasn’t our unofficial senior class motto “It’s too late to care.” ? They wouldn’t let us use it as the graduation backdrop, or something like that.
“It’s the sign of the end of glorious summer, and the beginning of the drudgery that is school and the impending winter which follows.”
The exact reason that I hate chrysanthemums.
I got no back to school wisdom. School starts when? Been so long, don’t care. The only child finished back in the early aughts. I do, however, love me some office supplies. Especially those delightful TUL pens. I’ll buy my own and stash them in my desk because we’re too cheap around here to spend that much on office supplies –let ’em use BIC. When I see someone with one of my pens, I get a little judgemental.
“Back in prison with no freedom of speech” – that’s what I’d put on my notebook today.
Just found out they have jammers in the school so no more kids snapchatting and sexting. I mean what a terrible distraction from the asshattery they call EDUCATION!
My motto in school was always, “This too shall pass.”
One time I turned myself in to the dean’s office for smoking in the girls’ room, because you’d get a one-day suspension for it, and it wouldn’t do any damage to your permanent record (ah, the 80s!). The dean knew bullshart when she saw it, and wasn’t inclined to suspend me, but I prosecuted my case like a self-immolating attorney–provided witnesses and everything. I wish I could say that I pulled that stunt because I had something epic up my sleeve, but all I did was watch t.v. and drink Mountain Dew when I got home.
I love office supply stores, too. If I can find something i really dig in the clearance bin, I get inexplicably giddy.
“Self-immolating attorney” is one of the best phrases I’ve ever read.
Wouldn’t the world be a much better place if most attorneys were self-immolating?
I’m not going to answer either question, but regarding the topic; there have been certain times in my life that I felt were milestones (well that’s how it seemed then). My last year of high school was one of those times; not because it was the end of a great chapter in my life, but because high school had sucked so much, I had a devil-may-care attitude during my last year, which I dubbed “carpe diem”. And I said “carpe diem” to everyone I came across. And I became more socially adventurous. And I worried less and had more fun, and did more things. That was the one time I said “things will be different”, and they were.
And then I went to college, and it sucked way more.
I swear to God that I lost my virginity before I finally understood that people weren’t saying, “Devil make hair”. Of course it didn’t make sense, but a lot of epigrammatic adultspeak was obscure. And, to be clear, it wasn’t getting laid that caused me to reparse the syllables. It just happened. To be fair, “Devil-may-care” doesn’t make a shitload more sense than my previous interpretation, but majority rules.
I still wonder sometimes where she went and what she’s doing now.
John
“Devil Make Hair” gave me a darn good chuckle today. Thanks, jtb!
Fuck school, fuck Christmas.
I’ll give that the ubiquitous….LOL!
“Your teachers are cynics, most likely drunks, and they hate you and your classmates.”
Phantom,
Sounds a little like Doug Stanhope, but I can’t confirm. I assume the quotation marks indicate somebody said or wrote it.
jtb
No, it’s in quotes because it was supposed to be my suggestion for a school motto. Sorry for the confusion, I was taught by cynical drunks who hated me. Also, I was a crappy student.
I hated school, and back to school, because it meant more close parental oversight, and getting my ass kicked if I didn’t bring home good grades. We were poor, so my office supplies were limited to loose leaf notebook paper, the occasional Big Chief tablet, and Pee Chee Folders (look those up, classics).
As a kid it was worse because all the other kids would get the 64 pack of Crayolas with the built in sharpener, while I had to make do with a used box of 8.
Boo hoo. No wonder I have issues! Thanks Jeff for helping me bring back all THOSE repressed memories!
You just made me think of the first day of elementary school when our teacher would give each of us a mimeographed sheet of paper (remember that smell?) with a list of school supplies we would need for the year. There was always some kind of notebook paper that had to be lined in a special way that was almost impossible to find. It would take trips to several stores to finally locate a tablet of that crap. I’ll never forget the Big Chief tablet and how one go over a word once with an eraser which would always produce a hole in the page. And I, too, so longed for the big box of Crayolas with the built-in sharpener. I remember in particular the “flesh” color; you were really up town if you had that one! I hated school from the day I started until I graduated!
Lol, that Big Chief paper was about as thin as department store-bathroom toilet paper. Probably was some left over CIA shit that would disintegrate a few days after use! I remember that mimeograph paper smell, and how the paper always seemed sort of wet.
When I had kids, every time we’d go to Walmart, I’d buy a huge box of crayons for them, just because I could. We must have had 5000 crayons in the house by the time they outgrew coloring!
I hated my entire school career. In high school and college, whenever asked what my goals were, my answer was ‘getting out of school’. I figured life HAD to be easier without all the daily bullshit of school. I figured wrong!
I thought I was the only one that loves stationery/office supply stores. I have an abundance of mechanical pencils and gel pens. I wish I could have decorated my locker with all the cute magnetic buttons and pins.
I spend too much money on red wine.
Back-to-school notebook mottos:
Who Cares? This Is All Bullshit Anyway
Just Join Band. You Know You Want To.
These are NOT the best years of your life. Just get through them as best you can.
Learn math, science and proper English for the love of God.
Things I spend way too much money on:
I’m with madz on the wine, though I don’t buy it by the case. Maybe I should. Hmmm…
Dog treats. Why I think the dog needs all those treats, I have no idea, but for some reason, I have a blast buying them.
‘Just join band. You know you want to.’ = Perfect. Folks who weren’t in band really didn’t know what they were missing, IMHO. Goes double for the kids who were in marching band. (Can you tell which group I hung with in high school?)
just give me my Trapper Keeper and get out the way
I had forgotten all about Trapper Keepers! That made me laugh. Thanks!
My least favorite part of “back to school” is that I will soon be dodging yellow friggin’ busses and the hoards of future smart asses waiting for them again on my morning runs.
http://triblive.com/aande/music/12555282-74/jerry-weber-is-retiring-but-jerrys-records-will-go-on
Jeff if your ever in the ‘Burg check this place out.
Notebook Mottos:
No lie. It’s even worse after you graduate.
Just get through this. You won’t see these people again for at least 10 years.
Your teachers are just tolerating you.
Grades don’t matter unless you’re failing.
Jeff – I’m with you on the office supply giddiness. Markers – permanent or dry erase, Post Its, Moleskins (no idea why this name gives me the willies but the notebooks are near fantastic), and a Staples walk through are a few things that float my boat.
Biggest ongoing waste of money: satellite TV. It’s $85-ish per month, and I haven’t watched it since Hurricane Sandy.
Office supplies are excellent. Binder clips are the best thing for reclosing bags of chips, the inner liner to a box of crackers, etc. Hi-liters, post-it notes, staplers and pens… these are a few of my favorite things.
Warm woolen mittens and PaperMate InkJoy pens. I don’t write much anymore, but damn those are nice pens, especially for a heavy presser like me.
I once dated a heavy presser. I don’t recall the InkJoy pens, but the warm woolen mittens damn near asphyxiated me during a moment of what must have been passion.
jtb
Notebook should read “Apply to infested area”
I spend too much money on artisan cheese.
No shit. $25 a pound for Roquefort. But man, is it good.