Our son was going into the second grade.  The teacher had sent parents a note requesting school supplies that would be used in caddies by groups of desks.  It made sense to me.  I spent a small fortune each Fall when I shopped for school supplies.  If our Yorkie found scented crayons he would eat them.  His poop was multi-colored.  I had to buy more scented crayons.

I packed our second grader’s supplies into a grocery bag.  The others had theirs in back packs.  I wrote his name on the bag, and at the end of the driveway I told him that he had to give his teacher the bag of school supplies.  He and I locked eyes.  “Do NOT bring this bag of supplies home.  These stay with the teacher!  Do not, not, not bring this bag home.

I had two preschool kids to drive to preschool.  The older two could walk to their school.  I had only a half day “off”.  I raced around like a crazy woman, and then sat down at the kitchen table and drank coffee.  I had to heist myself into our van on the preschool pick-up drive.  I made an error.  I brought our Yorkie in the van.

The parking lot was pandemonium, but I saw our two littlest kids by their preschool teachers.  I opened the door just enough to squeeze out and help the kids get into their car seats in the van.  Our Yorkie was a bolt of lightening out of the van’s door.  Stupid enough to eat crayons, he also dashed around the parking lot under moving cars.  I screamed and ran around, crazy, to get my hands on him.

My kids watched.  I finally got him onto the lawn and almost killed him myself by throwing myself onto him.  I tucked him, wiggling, under my arm with one hand gripping his neck.  I went over to the kids and we went into a bunch to the van.  I put the kids in their seats, put the windows up while still gripping the Yorkie.  Once my door was closed and locked I turned on A/C to cool myself down.  I let go of the dog and he ran all over the van to greet the kids and sniff everything.  “Enjoy the running around?” I told the dog.  “It will never happen again.” I said.

We reached home.  The Yorkie peed on the carpet.  The kids ate lunch, dropping half of it on the floor which the dog cleaned up.  I stripped off their new school clothes and put them into play clothes.  I calmed them down by reading books that they liked.  The Yorkie lay down by the register blowing cool air.  I spread a blanket on the family room floor and tossed pillows and their baby blankets onto it.  I lay down on the couch with a sofa pillow and we had an hour of chill time left before the older two walked home. I always checked my pulse.  I had to bring it down.

We were half asleep when the older two came home from school.  I stared at my second grade son.  He was holding the bag of school supplies!  The oldest child whisked upstairs to change clothes and avoid this confrontation.  “What’s the matter with you?  You were supposed to give the bag to your teacher!”  He gave me a stare, a blank stare.  I took the bag from him and set it on the table with my purse and car keys.  They had snacks and drinks and were quiet so as not to wake the youngest, a hyperactive toddler.

The first day of school was wild.  My husband was the superintendent. We had an unremarkable dinner and the dog again cleaned up the floor under the table.  I pointed to the paper bag of school supplies.  “He” and I jerked my head at the second grader, “He brought them home and he was supposed to leave them there in his room.”

It was getting dark.  All six of us sans the dog took the short drive to the elementary school.  We had the bag.  My husband, of course, had school keys.  We tiptoed in, and my husband turned off the alarm for a while as we went down the dark hall to the second grade classroom.  My husband opened the door and we all went inside with the bag of supplies.

My husband snapped on the light and something moved rapidly in a terrarium with a screened top with a rock on it…a pretty big rock.  I startled and let our a shriek.  “What is THAT?”  I asked my son.  “Oh, it’s just Rosie, the tarantula.”  I dropped that bag of school supplies and shuddered all over.  I am the most fearful of two or maybe three things: spiders, sharks, and death.  I exited the room ahead of everybody and stood by the school doors to leave.  I had goosebumps on me the size of marbles.  That was the end of that year’s first day of school.