This morning while sipping my coffee and watching CNN’s coverage of the Republican National Convention I was moved for perhaps the first time in my life to make a political statement. It has nothing to do with the GOP, nor Donald or Melania Trump, not even a potential wall along Mexico’s border with the USA. Nope, my gripe is with Office Depot/Office Max.
Let me stress that today is July 20th. We are not even into the dog days of summer, yet Office Depot/Office Max want us to ‘Gear up for school’. Get real.
I suggest we boycott Office Depot until they remove this thinly veiled ‘back to school’ campaign. Mid-July is no time for school preparation, it is a time for camps, baseball, swimming pools and relaxing. No wonder North Americans tend to not use up their allotted amount of vacation.
While I have given up my quest to have schools return to the old schedule, starting on the Tuesday after Labour Day, this mid-July attempt to have students, parents and teachers gear up for class is at best offensive, and at worst dangerous.
As kids say, chillax, there is a whole ten months of school coming up, so let’s not rush things. Office Depot should issue a mea culpa advertisement, apologizing for running the spots a month early. Oops, we screwed up. Until they acknowledge the angst they are potentially causing by suggesting July is an appropriate time to begin getting ready for school, a boycott seems in order. I’d organize it, but I’m chilling.
DCMontreal 
I remember when I was a young ‘un in school, and not even thinking about school supplies until the day *after* the first day of school. In September. And I just read in some list of something or other that, supposedly, buying school supplies in July is less expensive.. (YA right!)