Skool is kool.

Back-to-school time again. Every year around this time, my close inner circle of acquaintances and I have roughly the same conversation about the supposed “earliness” of the start of the school year:

"Gosh, school is starting on the 14th this year!"

"Yup."

"Seems like it's starting earlier and earlier every year."

"Yup."

The Labor Day-to-Memorial Day school calendar of generations past is, for the most part, no more. Too bad, too, because those two days seemed to be pretty good benchmarks. Now school starts on some sort of arbitrary date like August 10 or 15 and ends sometime in May or June, and kids have to stuff three months of summer into about 10 weeks.

What kind of nerd was I when I was school-age? I had held false halcyon memories of my youth – warm home life! Popular! Athletic! - up until this week when Wife and I were going through a box of books for possible eBay sale. She pulled out a ½-inch thick geography book on Africa, from some long-forgotten series on the continents, and I recalled the summer before my 5th grade year, when I had the same series of books in my house. In the last month before school started, I decided that for extra credit – remember, this was in July, when most young boys my age were out riding their bicycles or eating bugs or whatever – I would write a report on each of the Canadian provinces. And, to give you an idea of my stick-to-it-iveness, I would burn out after Manitoba and not finish. This seems to be a recurring theme in my life to date (burning out, whether I’ve reached Manitoba or not).

The first child of one of my co-workers started kindergarten this week. Requisite tears were shed, etc. I can only imagine the basket case I’ll turn into when Son takes that first walk to the bus. That’s something I’m definitely not ready for, and I don’t know if any of us are ever ready for it. But she passed along a tidbit that, to be honest, made me wonder about the direction we’re all headed.

Her little girl’s first assignment in kindergarten was to come up with and memorize a five-digit PIN. Apparently, at least in her school district in Bloomington, the parents put money into an account, and then, through the use of this PIN, the student can use that money to buy lunch, pencils, etc. “It’s so the kids don’t have to carry money around,” my co-worker said.

“But then the bully will just beat the PIN out of them!” I protested.

(The grammar snob in me butts in with an aside: Please don’t ever say “PIN number.” That’s like saying “USA America” or “HIV virus.” Redundancy is redundant.)

Anyway, I don’t know making a 5-year-old memorize a PIN rubs me the wrong way, but it does. I don’t know why we have to track every last thing that all of us do, and I don’t know why it’s starting earlier and earlier in life. I do know that I don’t like it.

(Speaking of things I don’t know, I also don’t know why I laughed so hard at the cover of this week’s Weekly World News [“Osama captured by rednecks!”]. The accompanying picture was hilarious.)