Hold Out for the New Crayons!!

So, have you had a chance to cruise the school supply aisle at a big box store or two in the last month?  While calculators, erasers, mechanical pencils and scissors all have the "new and improved" look (that label is not JUST for the detergent aisle, you know,) good 'ole Crayola crayons still look just about the same - and smell the same, too.

It's that waxy, chips of stray colors lining the bottom of your supply box by Christmas smell that is one of the mostly untarnished memories from past school starts.  My mother always had dozens of last year's crayons left from children who couldn't wait to relinquish their remaining crayon stash just before bolting out the door for the summer. 

Fortunately, my mother only tried to get me to glean from this heap of someone elses crayon history once.  I suppose it was a silly place to stand my ground, but I knew crayons were a whoppin' 24 cents (a penny a piece,) and there is NOTHING like an untouched, sharpened crayon to herald in the start of the school year. 

For her, it was the trip for new shoes.....now there's a costly tradition.  Shoes to wear TO school, gym shoes to LEAVE in the gym locker, AND snow boots.  A 24 box of crayons seemed like a pretty simple thing to me.....of course when that 96 box emerged on the scene, with the built in sharpener.......now that was a splurge!  (Especially when that shoebox of last years crayons was sitting in the trunk of our car.)