Ah, a new school year. A
time for new beginnings, new friends, and of
course a trip to the office supply store for
back-to-school supplies. With lists in hand,
my sons and I headed to the store and carefully
roamed the aisles filling our cart with notebooks,
paper, pencils, markers, crayons, and last but
not least, a P-touch label maker. OK, that final
item was an impulse purchase Mommy made at the
checkout counter. And boy, since then, I've
been putting my personal touch on everything!
It all started innocently enough. As I was pulling
my sons’ folders and notebooks out of
the bag, I thought I would label them with their
names just in case they misplaced them (as children
often do). But before you knew it, I was printing
off a flurry of identifying information covering
every inch of their new belongings. My sons
were unaware of my labeling frenzy until the
first day of school when my eldest son opened
his backpack and was mortified at the contents
inside. In his mind, I might as well have stuck
pink flashing neon signs all over everything
screaming "nerd, nerd, nerd." I guess
it probably wasn't the best way to start off
middle school.
What can I say? I've always been one who was
big on organization. And this labeling fetish
really isn't new, it's just resurfacing from
my youth. As a kid, I had a manual orange DYMO
label maker that by a click of a wheel and a
squeeze of a trigger I watched each individual
letter appear on a colorful piece of adhesive
tape. I pretty much labeled everything I could
get my hands on and my grandmother even let
me label some things at her house. In retrospect
though, I realize she was probably humoring
me since I'm pretty sure she could tell the
difference between small plates, large plates,
bowls and cups.
So after I labeled all of my sons’ back-to-school
items, I got itchy to find some new things to
classify. I grabbed my P-touch and like a divining
rod leading to water, my P-touch led me to some
unruly recycling bins in the garage. "Ah,
this is a job for P-touch," I said with
superhero pride. "But, first I must consult
with Recycling Man" (a.k.a my husband).
"Honey, I want to label the recycling bins.
How should I label them?"
"Why do you want to label them? They're
see-thru plastic containers. I think I can figure
out what's in them."
"Oh, stop being such a pain and just tell
me."
"Alright, well, there's newspapers, #1
plastic, cans, corrugated cardboard, non-corrugated
cardboard, and non-peat plastic."
"Who's Pete?" I naively questioned.
His glare was enough to send me back inside
to seek out something else to sort and categorize.
My next destination was the basement where I
found stacks of stuff littering the shelves
and spilling onto the floor. "Ugh. This
is a disgrace," I said with a grin. After
purchasing ten very large plastic bins, I proceeded
to contain this chaos and label each bin accordingly.
When I was finished, it was a sight to behold.
Since then, the kids have gotten involved in
this labeling craze, but I had to cut them off
when I caught them printing unsavory words and
labeling each other’s corresponding body
parts. And the cats run as soon as they see
me waving my new "toy" in their direction.
Sadly, I'm afraid I might have finally run out
of things to label, so my P-touch sits quietly
tucked away in my desk drawer just waiting to
emerge.
Well, there is always my husband's tools and
underwear drawer. "Hey, honey…."
|
