I was at Tar­get yes­ter­day, buy­ing Grape Nuts and wait­ing patiently for the Lib­er­tine stuff to arrive, when I real­ized the Great Sum­mer Switch had hap­pened. You know the one–suddenly the gar­den and bar­be­cue aisles become devoted to crayons and back­packs, and every­thing is all about school sup­plies and Fall and things in which one can store said school sup­plies. While I am a lit­tle upset about sum­mer being so cru­elly snatched from those who can enjoy it most (school-age chil­dren and teach­ers), I have to con­fess a deep dark dorky secret: I love back-to-school shop­ping. I have not lived in a dorm room for ages, yet I needed to check out all of Target’s offer­ings for dorm res­i­dents, at some points won­der­ing how I could work items like a hot pink laun­dry bas­ket into my own home.

I don’t do nearly as much dam­age in the gar­den and bar­be­cue aisles.