Saturday, August 18, 2007

The B-itch Is Back

I haven’t been able to blog this week as much as I’d like. I completely missed Wordless Wednesday. I didn’t even get a chance to visit the other Thursday Thirteeners and I’m behind on reading the recent posts of all my bloggy friends, including Jenny McB, who so kindly gave me this “Nice Matters Award”.

The award is to go to bloggers who are nice people and good blog friends and to those who inspire good feelings and inspiration and she picked me!

ME! The angry at Technorati, revenge seeking Rock Chick! Isn’t that cool?

JennyMcB is the bees knees!

Here’s what she said:
“Jessica at This Life Rantastic: Boy, she's one rocking chick, and as snarky as she can be in her observations of life, she is a supportive blogger. Her blogs make me smile! And the world needs more smiles....Now if we can only figure out how to get her to the Technorati A-list....”


If only is right, Jenny McB, ‘cause my authority scores and rank are dropping like flies. Maybe Tech-NO-rati didn’t like the blow-up doll comment in my previous post, I don’t know. He can bite me.

I have to pass this award on to seven people and I will do that in a future post. Thanks again, Jenny McB for thinking of me!

Anyway, the reason I haven’t been blogging as much this week is because we are officially in back to school mode. If I completely disappear, it’s because I won’t be able to afford electricity after all of the school supply, clothes and book shopping. Good Lord.

I have two kids in high school this year and on Monday we went to the book sale. Its kind of a disorganized mess with no real clear path to take to make sure you don’t miss anything. Even worse, it’s staffed by students who don’t seem to know the answer to any question you might have, just like a regular retail store!

When I was pretty sure we had everything, we got in line to pay. The cashier never stopped smiling as she scanned everything and then she very sweetly said my balance was “$928.00”. Thud.

I wasn’t completely surprised, but it still gets me every time. This is public school and this does not even include the gym towel fees, gym uniforms, science lab fees, activity fees, sports fees, club activity fees, band and choir uniform rental fees, yearbooks, pencils, paper, highlighters and spiral notebooks!

Oh, and let’s not forget the two complete cheerleading outfits at $550.00 each, which by the way, seem to get more expensive despite suffering from a severe amount of fabric loss each year. As we left, I winked at the bankruptcy attorney who so intelligently set up a kiosk at the book sale exit. Maybe he’ll give me a discount on his filing fees.

Egads! And that’s only for the two high school kids. I haven’t even mentioned my two in Junior High who came home with school supply lists that included almost everything they sell at Wal-Mart including tissues and toilet paper. Toilet paper? I have no real issues with tissues, BUTT I’m wiping toilet paper off the list.

I’m sorry, but I pay over $7,000 a year in property taxes and it’s an additional small fortune to send my kids to public schools that claim to be so broke that they can’t buy their own toilet paper, yet every elementary school teacher in the district is now obtaining a Master’s degree on our dime.

I know, I know, better quality teachers equal a better education for our kids. You’d think so, except our school administration is so frustrating to the teachers that they just stick it out to complete their higher education and then leave for other (not so broke and aggravating) school districts. The teachers are then replaced by others who come to get a free Master’s degree and the cycle is repeated. That really bugs me and I know it sounds bitchy and not at all like someone who just won a “Nice Matters Award”, but they can buy their own toilet paper.

Today is also my son’s birthday. My cute little preemie baby who, according to my brother the “foodie”, was smaller than the portions served at Boston Market. He was supposed to arrive around October 1st, but decided to show up early on August 18th. Sounds early, but the first time he tried to escape was on July 5th.

D-Man is now 5’ 3”, getting taller by the day, wearing men’s size 10 shoes and the ONLY thing he wanted for his birthday today is a $249 Wii video game system (oh, and just a couple of games), you know, to go alongside the X-Box, Playstation 2 and Game Cube systems he already has.

I tried to tell him his birthday present was the $200 emergency room deductible I'm going to have to pay because on Tuesday, during a game of paint ball, my son decided to take cover and get a better shooting position by laying down on a wasp’s nest.

He's fine now, but, yes folks, another prime example of what I like to call "the penis gene" in action!

That suggestion didn’t fly..(errr, wasp), with him, though. He still wanted the Wii and, of course, we got it for him.

I’m glad I bought the big bottle of Benadryl because I think my upcoming credit card statement is really going to sting, too!

OUCH!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Geez, I can't believe you have to pay for all that. If it worked that way here I might have to sell one of the girls to get my oldest through highschool. Hey, maybe after I have secured my credential I can come rent a room from you so your district could fund my Master's degree, lol. Don't worry, I'll bring my own toilet paper.

The Rock Chick said...

HI Sarah!

I can't believe i have to pay for all that either! My nephew goes to school in Georgia and all he has to buy is a backpack if he wants one.

You might as well come on over and take advantage, everybody else does! Glad you're bringing your own TP, too, because I'm not sure I have a square to spare :)

Jessica

Jenny McB said...

I guess I shouldn't complain about our $90 family fee for all sports/activities at the high school.

Okay, here is my rant about teaching ( and I was one for 4 years....) could their health insurance be any better? I can't believe how much you spent at the book sale..does that mean no text books are provided?

Have you checked into ebooks for text books? Good luck !

Qtpies7 said...

Are they buying new books for every class every year? How can you have to buy books for high school?
I'm putting one of my kids in public school online, and they are even supplying the computer, printer, webcam, teacher, and if we are poor enough, they will pay our travel expenses for the few trips we have to make to the school!
How can the normal person afford to put thier child in school? I can barely afford the backpacks and paper and pens and markers they make us get, I ignore some of the other stuff, like kleenex and plastic baggies. It is WAY cheaper to homeschool.

Crystal said...

Holy cow, and I thought our property tax was high.

The Rock Chick said...

Jenny: The only textbook that is provided is the history book. We have to buy everything else. My daughters freshman bio book is brand new this year and was $110.00 alone. They don't give us the book list until we go to the book sales, either, so I have no idea what they will need until the week before school.

qtpies: Yes, we have to buy all the books for every class every year. At the end of the year, they do give you a little bit of credit if you sell them back, but you can only do that if the book is going to be used the next year. That doesn't seem to happen all that often. Last year my daughter only got a $41.00 credit and I paid $450.00 for her books in the beginning of the year.

I've never heard of public school online! How does that work? Oh, I don't think I could homeschool. It's frustrating enough to try to help with homework and convince them that I actually DO know how to do algebra.

crystal: mine actually is relatively low compared to a lot of the area around here. My parents are in the next town to the north of me and they are at over $11,000. My sister is paying almost that much, too.

Jessica Morris said...

That is insane! You could almost send them to a private school for that amount of money... ok, so maybe not quite... but I thought the point of public school was that it was free??

I wonder if TPing the school would count as your donation of tp?? I would be sorely tempted to do that if I had that huge list of things I had to buy for public school!

Right now we're in GA, so I guess we'd only have to buy that backpack ;)

Tho really, right now, I want to home school our kiddos. I think it would be fun =)

I have missed seeing you around, glad you're back!

The Rock Chick said...

Jessica,

No public school here is not free, at least in our district, unless you're on welfare. It's just cheaper than the private schools. I just think whoever handles our budgets is ummmm...maybe not so good at it.

Jessica Morris said...

seriously?? I have never heard of paying to go to public school! odd. are people dying to get out of your county??

katherine. said...

it is outrageous isn't it. (Although our cheerleader outfits were just over $800 and that was 7 years ago)

just wait til they are in college....