Hamburger Backpack….

I took the kids to pick out their new backpacks for school.

I didn’t think there was anything terribly offensive about the backpacks they used the previous school year but it’s tough not to feel obligated to buy new with backpacks dangling from every minivan antennae for miles around.

I figured Ellie would go for something with a lot of swirly, bright colours—check.

Hanna would go for something with animal print or take the sporty-route and Chloe would beg for a backpack despite having had her new back-to-school backpack for over a month and doing a “fashion show” with it every time anyone new walked or drove past the house.

Hanna picked up a backpack that seemed to have a quilted top and within the quilting was a textured pattern of a colourful hamburger, sorry, cheeseburger, enveloping the entire front of the backpack.

“I want this one.”

Sometimes when I’m shopping for an item I let the kids have total control over the choice provided 1) it isn’t ridiculously over-priced and 2) it isn’t a backpack with a hamburger on it.

I told Hanna while I agreed it was totally rad (kids say that right?) it was probably something she would grow tired of and I wasn’t going to buy two backpacks in the same school year unless someone threw up actual hamburgers inside of one of them.

“I won’t get sick of it. This is the one I want.”

The hamburger. Backpack. Is the one you want.
“Yep.”

I explained that there would inevitably be four boys in her class with the burger-pack because it had a bit of a boyish whimsy about it.

She said that made no sense (yup) and that her friend wore a taco costume for Hallowe’en last year and the burger was basically the same.

Wow, we both need to take some courses in negotiating.

The truth is I don’t know why I hated everything about the burger backpack. The tomatoes? The quilted-green lettuce? It had nothing to do with me.

Maybe I was afraid people would think we were Fast Food junkies and would totally miss the irony.

Maybe I worried the 24 hour burger would cause some sort of eating disorder. Not to my daughter but it certainly posed a risk to everyone walking behind her.

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