HW 32: Responding to Riverbend

After reading Riverbend's October 5, 2003 post she talks a lot about shopping for school supplies. In this post, Riverbend makes an interesting point. She states "Yesterday, I went with my cousin, his wife, and my brother E., to shop for school supplies for his two daughters, a pretty ten year old and a loud seven year old. Every year his wife, S., takes the girls to pick out their own pencils, notebooks, and backpacks but ever since the war, she hasn't let them step outside of the house unless it is to go visit a relative." (Riverbend 94). From reading this section I realized that we do things very differently over here in America. Usually going school shopping isn't an entire family event in most cases especially beyond the immediate family. She also states how the girls arent aloud to step outside unless they are going to visit a relative, which in my opinion is a very scary thought. I could never imagine not being able to do what I want to do when I want to do it. Another interesting point that Riverbend brings up, is when they are in the store and she starts talking about erasers. " We've all tasted an eraser at some point or another. In the end, we went with some strawberry shaped erasers that oddly enough, smelled like peaches.....S. said I was confusing the kids but I reminded her that they had never tasted strawberries anyway....her kids wouldn't know the difference." (Riverbend 95). This idea is very strange to even consider thinking about. The idea of not knowing what a strawberry looks like or even smells like. In this case coming across an eraser that smells like something very unfamiliar to some yet very familiar to our culture here in America.