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� all content 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005
Suburban Island

Back to School 2004
Tuesday, Sept. 07, 2004, 1:14 p.m.

QUESTION: What plan?

WHAT I LEARNED: Planning isn't second nature.

Today is the first day of school. My son is now officially a sophomore in high school. He went out with his sister yesterday for some last minute school clothes shopping. Shopping with his sister is a big deal because she has a good eye for fashion and probably could make money advising other on what to wear and what not to wear. I trust her judgment on these matters implicitly and he came back with a few new things in his wardrobe that are officially sister approved. Everybody should be lucky enough to have this type of free consulting at hand.

I blew off some weekend chores to hang around with my son during these few last days of summer vacation. I don�t advise him on fashion. I do take him to movies however. This weekend we went to see, Danny Deckchair � an improbably, delightful film that was sweet, hopeful, and funny all at once. It was a good end of summer film and we left the theater full of buttered popcorn and blended fruit drinks. Our pre-back-to-school spirits had been uplifted, as might reasonably be expected after viewing a movie that uses balloons to such good effect. We drove home in the twilight, discussing the finer points of the film and making plans for our next movie outing.

We also had our planning lunch. This is the lunch where I talk about what he needs to think about this year going into the 10th grade and he thinks to himself how he can�t believe he has to suffer through this parental back-to-school talk. It�s strategic. It�s important. It�s called having a plan. Nothing can stop this mother from the full-blown planning lunch talk with general life tips thrown in here and there for good measure and at no extra charge. I write down things he needs to keep in mind. He draws pictures on the placemat. We eat lunch. Everyone is happy.

Late yesterday afternoon he decided he might like a haircut. Of course, there was still the 11th hour clothes shopping to do with his big sis, and all those forms that we�ve had for a week that he suddenly realized needed to be filled out before he could get his locker the next day (okay, I guess I should have read the mailer more carefully myself). So what if nothing has been planned and we�re doing everything at the last minute. I�m always willing to give it a shot being a bit of a procrastinator myself.

We drove to the barbershop. We parked in front of the big plate glass window and through it we could plainly see the result of waiting until the last minute and it wasn�t a happy sight. There were so many other guys that had also decided they needed a haircut late on Labor Day that there was not an empty seat to be had. There would be no last minute haircut for my son. We didn�t even get out of the car but simply backed out of the parking space directly in front of the busy barbershop window and traveled back home weighing the impact of getting a haircut versus not getting a haircut.

After the kids came back from the mall, we had dinner around the gentle glow of the TV set, did the last minute chores that had been put off all weekend, and settled down for the night. I finished filling out the school forms that would result in a kid with a locker on the first day of school. It was 11 PM. Everyone was still up, even though everyone should be asleep � another aspect of my school strategies speech that hadn't been absorbed.

There goes another talk on the value of planning � shot to hell.

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