white shorts

Confession:

I feel a kind of shock each July I walk into Wal-Mart and see school supplies on the shelves. It's an awful feeling. I turn my head and push my cart away quickly.

This is strange and confusing for me. You see, I LOVE school supplies.  Crayons, markers, sticky notes. The list goes on. I get a thrill picking out a twelve plus pack of colored dry erase markers. I buy more map pencils than any normal person could possibly need.

But summer just really got going! I'm still wearing my favorite pair of white shorts. White shorts exude summer to me. I feel unfaithful just thinking about presharpened pencils and all the glue sticks I could want.

I can't think about what's coming. Not yet.  This tearing rips through me. I want first pick! I want to see what's new! But then I remember the summer to do list on my ice box at home, and that it is only partly marked through. I wrote it at the beginning of summer. I was optimistic. Aren't we all?

I lean for a moment, I sway...

And then I decide.

My commitment at this point is to summer. I push thoughts of packs of red pens from my mind.  "I have time....I have time," I chant as I turn my eyes to the rack of sunscreen and striped towels just feet away.

Before I know it, ya'll, I'm standing in the check-out line, leaning over the cart counting my items. That's when I see it. The prettiest plastic multi-pack of colored sharpies money can buy.

"How'd that get in there?" I say to no one in particular. The corners of my lips may or may not have turned slightly up at this. I can't be sure. Strange things happen in Wal-Mart, ya'll,