STRANGER THAN FICTION: BACK-TO-SCHOOL TIME SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT

The scent of fresh, wide-ruled notebook paper and pencil graphite is in the air.

Summer is over at my alma mater -- dear ol' Sikeston High -- and Cape Girardeau kids soon will follow their southern counterparts back to school. Of course, the Cape kids won't have air conditioning.

Nah-nah-nee-boo-boo-stick-your-head-in-doo-doo.

For some reason, area schools start before Labor Day, then immediately give their kids a Monday off. I can't explain it. But thanks to this policy, it's still 102 degrees outside when students have to walk through the heat to sit on hot buses, then sit in hot classrooms for a few hours, then have a hot plate lunch.

Way back when I was a student (insert bored groans here), that first day of school couldn't come too soon. My parents were card-carrying members of the Gestapo and always worked out a summer plan of chores and volunteering to fill our days. I'll never forget what Mom said one summer when she announced I'd be going to a local nursing home two days a week to help with activities.

"You vill go to da nursink home, and you vill enchoy yourself!," she said, clicking her heels together and giving the Nazi salute.

At age 15, volunteering at a nursing home is a fate worse than death. What if your friends find out you're doing something helpful for society? What if a really cute guy sees you on your bicycle SWEATING as you pull into the nursing home? What if he thinks you LIVE there or something?

The other option was staying at home, scrubbing toilets and picking relatives' hair out of bathtub drains. I've always believed, as did my parents, that the only reason to have children is for slave labor without interference from OSHA or the Department of Labor.

Finally, summer was over. Mom loaded us kids into the family station wagon for that trip to the local discount department store's back-to-school sale. We bought fresh, white notebook paper, not that dingy recycled stuff they have nowadays. We bought pencils. We bought pens. We bought blue jeans galore.

You can't underestimate the importance of the first-day outfit. It can make or break a school year. Wear the right thing and you're good to go for the year. Wear the wrong thing and your social life is history.

I must have been wearing the wrong thing.

It certainly wasn't for a lack of trying. I'd latch onto my mother's arm and plead, "Pleeeeease get me the twist-a-bead necklace! Pleeeeease don't make me wear boy's Wrangler jeans! Pleeeeease spend $75 on a pair of the name-brand jeans in extra-tall!"

Teen-agers today probably don't remember when Wranglers were completely uncool. And they certainly don't remember twist-a-bead necklaces. Every female alive bought at least 20 strands of these small beads, see, and then twisted six or seven of them together and put on this clasp . . .

Never mind.

Then there was the first-day lunch, when you found out which friends shared your lunch shift, which table you'd be claiming for the year and whether you'd be eating your 15,000th bologna sandwich or spending your hard-earned allowance on Suzy-Qs like you did all last year.

I was more of the Suzy-Q type, thus my physique today. Mom packed us girls turkey bologna sandwiches with mustard and one piece of lettuce every day for the extent of my school career. If you put all the sandwiches that wound up in the trash end-to-end, you could circle the globe twice.

I'm not sure what the message is in all this, but much like a political candidate, I'm going to have a nice, morale-raising finish.

You students heading back to elementary, junior high or high school: Good luck this year. Study hard. Stay out of trouble.

And, of course, eat your bologna sandwiches.

Heidi Nieland is staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.