Remember When... Back-to-School Shopping Was the Highlight of Your Summer?

We've grown up and moved on from erasable pens, but it doesn't mean we don't miss the experience of back-to-school shopping

Remember When... is a weekly feature every (#Throwback)Thursday where we look back on a moment that changed the world of pop culture forever. Come for the nostalgia, stay for the reminder that you are getting SO OLD.

What Happened: The date was...well, it was our informative year. The good, old days when VHS tapes were the best way to watch a movie, Easy-Bake Ovens were the preferred method of food preparation, and juice boxes had their own spot on your personal food pyramid. Summer was winding down, the school year was about to start, and your parents recieved an envelope in the mail. Inside was your teacher's personal list of supplies you would need to have tucked away in your desk/locker/backpack/whatever. Or maybe you were lucky enough to stroll into your local Target, only to find your school had already sent your supplies list to the store. #blessed

What Else Was Happening: It was still taboo to not invite everyone in your class to your birthday party (and on Valentine's Day, you needed to give everyone in the class a card). Cosmic bowling was the s--t. Your mother documented your first day of school like it was the most important day in history. Every. Year.

How We Remember It:

Lily Harrison, Entertainment Editor: "Two words: school supplies. There's nothing like a fresh box of pens to make you want to show up at the crack of dawn to learn about lord knows what. The notebooks, the pencil boxes, the backpack, it all needed to be new and chic and even have a consistent matching theme. I also remember I used to make collages for the covers of my notebooks and it required a ton of magazines (this was before Google Images was a thing—god I'm old.) So in addition to the multitude of supplies that I needed, I also perused just about every Seventeen magazine and YM (#neverforget) in order to get the best images for said collages. I had that process down to a damn art, you guys. Honestly, the hype of showing off my super-awesome gear almost distracted me from the fact that I was going back to school. Almost."

Kamala Kirk, Writer-Editor, E! Shows: "I remember it was all about the Lisa Frank stationary for me! Rainbows, butterflies, puppies, kittens. I was obsessed. And in my group of friends, each girl had her own Japanese character that she would buy all the school supplies in, like Keroppi the Frog, Hello Kitty, etc. Because all my friends had all the other characters, I was left with Pochacco the Dog (and god forbid any of us have the SAME character), and I remember having the purple pencil box, the erasers, the pencils..."

Elizabeth Freda, E! Loves Intern: "My essentials? Gel pens, a fReSh Trapper Keeper, and some Elmer's glue to put all over my hands and then peel off when I was bored in class. Luckily, I skipped the Lisa Frank trend. I liked to keep it classic and refused brands that weren't Pink Pearl, Bic and Five Star because apparently I was a school supply classist. I still get a thrill out of back-to-school shopping to this day."

John Boone, E! Loves Lead Editor: "I don't mean to sound flip when I say this, but from approximately third grade through sixth grade, I feel like there was a bomb threat every year when we went back to school shopping. I have a very distinct memory of being in a Wal-Mart and the manager coming over the loud speaker and saying the store needed to be evacuated. Hey, I was just there to get my pencil box that had the grooved top you could color with markers and then pour glue in and when it dried it became a cool bookmark. I wasn't trying to get blown up. So everyone just left their carts full of Trapper Keepers and No. 2 mechanical pencils in the aisles and left. And then we all stood in the parking lot until the police chief gave the all clear, went back inside, everyone found their respective cart and we continued shopping. I don't remember anyone ever suggesting, 'Oh, maybe we should go shop at Target where there isn't the threat of an imminent bomb.' But, you know, that's how serious we were about our school supplies. And our savings."