My Kingdom for a Sharpie

Favorite commercial of all time?  Probably the Staples one with the dad dancing through the aisles with his depressed children as “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” plays in the background.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcYbo7pjto]

Back to school season. New notebooks. Shiny binders. Push pins.

In packing for our beach house family reunion, the thought of office supplies did not occur to me. I was too busy loading boxes full of coffee, salt and pepper shakers, band aids and aloe. My sister-in-law arrived with forest-killing amounts of paper provisions. With 18 people using the bathrooms, you simply can’t have enough toilet paper. At one point, I considered giving everyone a lanyard so they could wear a personal roll around their necks.

But the one thing I desperately desired was a Sharpie. More than a crab cake. Or a hammock. Or a SUP (Stand Up Paddleboard. Took me 3 days to puzzle that one out.) Because we didn’t want to do dishes, we had plastic cups. The tap water was a bit bleachy, so there were water bottles. And soda and beer cans. Plus one mason jar with peach moonshine. You’d take a sip and then a herd migration would begin – to the beach, to the pool, to the mini golf – and by the time you returned, the beverage you suspected was yours could not be confirmed. Initials on the containers would have cut down on the discards.

Putting “Sharpie” on the list for next time, right after “One bottle of moonshine is good. Two is better.”