school uniforms or not?

Mac's entire education thus far has been at schools with uniforms. I LOVE schools with uniforms. There's no arguing in the morning, there's no fussing over not liking something. It is what it is. You wear it because you have to.

Well now tomorrow is day one of no uniforms. I'm afraid mornings are going to be a nightmare now because Mac, who has no sense of what matches or what's fashionable or trendy, is going to wear outfits that are not socially acceptable. He pairs things that have no business co-existing on the same body. So my plan is to decide the night before so there's no delay in getting ready in the morning.

In good news, he does wear a PE uniform twice a week, so that leaves us just 3 days a week to do battle. We bought two PE outfits the other night at the Back to School Bash and boy, was I pleasantly surprised by the price. At Chapel, it didn't seem possible to buy any component of the social or sports uniform for less than $20 or $30. I'm talking one shirt, one pair of shorts, etc. So I always hemorrhaged money every time I went to the uniform store.

I'm not exactly sure of the breakdown, but the other night I bought two nice t-shirts and two pair of basketball-type shorts for $50 total. I felt like I was robbing the school blind. I did express surprise and the woman ringing it up thought I was complaining.

It reminds of the time when Jimmy and I first moved to Mexico. We drove down and our only overnight stop in Mexico before reaching Guadalajara was some town that I can't remember the name of. Well we went out to eat and we were so used to Washington, DC prices that we thought we had to order enough to equal the cost of dinner out in DC. The waitress must have thought we were crazy when we ordered, and the craziness was surely confirmed when we left all this untouched food on the table. I sort of felt like that the other day when I paid for the gym uniform. I felt I needed to keep buying stuff because those four pieces equaled about one gym shirt at Chapel. Score one for Pinewood.