How to Rock First Grade

School is starting soon and as I learned last year, you can pick up a very handy school supply list from your neighborhood Walmart. I didn’t know pre-Kindergarten,  and ended up getting the entire list of supplies at almost the last minute. My thought was, “why do I need a list that says crayons and glue?”. Uh. Wrong.

Anyway, this year I’m pretty much a school supply list pro. I even had the majority of the list check marked nearly a month before school actually starts. I’m not early with anything. Ever. Accomplishment. Yes.

Incidentally, the list this year includes one clean sock. Does anyone know what this is for so I know what kind of sock to send? Let me know. Ankle, footie, tube sock. I need deets or I’m positive I’ll send the wrongest sock ever.

I always find the school supply list interesting. I am amazed by the detail that is included and how specific the requests are. Many items have to be Crayola, for instance. No dollar store pure wax crayons that don’t actually color.

This year, the list included 24 sharpened yellow #2 pencils. I don’t get the significance of yellow and I really don’t get why they needed to be sharpened. I don’t use yellow #2 pencils. I don’t have a pencil sharpener at home, in fact we never did growing up either. I remember my dad destroying my pencils with a knife. I learned not to tell him I needed a pencil sharpener.

Note to self: Tell daughter to not ask grandpa to sharpen her pencils. Ever.

Sharpened pencils are stupid otherwise. What fun is it if you can’t stand in line for half an hour cranking that loud ass pencil sharpener?

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My first grade teacher’s name was Mrs. Cobb. Or I’ve completely made that up and can’t really remember what her name was. I do know that someone’s name in my life was Mrs. Cobb and for the sake of convenience I’m sticking with it. (What? Do you really want me to refer to her as “My first grade teacher whose name I can’t remember”?)

A few things I remember about first grade:

• I had a good friend named Lori and I remember a girl named Patrice whom I called Batrice until my mother finally told me she thought it was Patrice. I also remember thinking my mom was completely wrong.

• I did not know my address or phone number. This is especially clear to me because there was a certain incident where a friend’s mom had to drive me around all night until I saw my house.  I had also given this friend a fake phone number previously when we exchanged numbers because I didn’t know that either. Imagine my surprise when the parents said “hey, let’s just call that phone number that she gave you and ask her parents”. Imagine their surprise when they looked at the paper and it said something like 6290. Do not lie if you don’t know your phone number. People will find out.

• I was called to Mrs. Cobb’s desk with the girl that sat next to me because our papers were exactly the same. I had no idea what that meant. When Mrs. Cobb held up the sheets of paper, both had my name at the top. All I remember thinking was why did Susie write my name on her paper?

• A boy named Bradley insisted he was my boyfriend and even tackled me outside when I told him he wasn’t. A “big” kid, probably a 6th grader, had to pull him off of me. No doubt that Bradley’s pervy ass is locked up somewhere right now.

• We used a humongous pad of paper with a red cover and an Indian Chief on the front called the Big Chief notepad. The paper was a weird brown color and looked like it was sliced fresh off a tree and if you weren’t careful could give you a splinter. There was also the Son of Big Chief notepad with the picture of the hippie that could never, unless by adoption, have been Big Chief’s son. Obviously these aren’t around anymore. I’m guessing because of the splinter hazard or Son of Big Chief was offending a whole lot of hippies.

• And the best memory of all goes to:  Upon returning back to school from lunch, I came up with the brilliant idea of running back home and telling my mom that Mrs. Cobb came outside and yelled “all first graders can go home for the rest of the day”. Of course Mom called the school and sent me back. The worst part is that Mrs. Cobb actually asked the class if anyone else heard her yell that. And all those backstabbing first graders said no.

This means two things:

1. My daughter’s first grade is going to be way interesting.

2. I remember some pretty weird and random stuff.

Lucky for her I’ve been there and consider myself a first grade professional now.

“Girl, puh-lease. I didn’t even know my address in first grade…”

I can’t wait.