I Remember When Rubber Bands Used to Be a Circle

Ok, is this a nationwide phenomenon? This trading of Silly Bandz?

No, I did not hear about it from my own first grader. She never mentioned a thing about them. But kids at her school are trading them like crazy. Two heart bands for one sea-horse. Three cat bands for one glow-in-the-dark iPod band.

Moms are driving their kids to remote locations miles away to buy a hard-to-find series of bands. It's nutty.

I learned about the whole gig while volunteering in Macy's class, where I noticed several kids had armfuls of colored rubber bands in various shapes and colors on their arms. I put 2 and 2 together when I witnessed a trade take place before the bell rang. (In my opinion, Amanda got the better end of that trade. She's quite the saleswoman.)

Aside from a brief Madonna-worshipping stage in high school, where I might have been known to wear 20+ black rubber bracelets on my own arm, I have never seen such a craze.

So, I bought Macy some "silly bandz" of her own. At a pricey $2.99 for twelve.

I should have grabbed a handful of regular rubber bands from the junk drawer, because as it turns out, my daughter is not into free commerce.

"Thanks," was all I got. "Now I can stand in line with all the other kids at recess and trade them." She could not have sounded less enthused if I'd proposed going to the dentist to have a tooth pulled.

"Why didn't you tell me about this silly band business?" I asked her. "I could have helped you get some."

Basically, my daughter has not one iota's interest in trading bands, or wearing them. She half-heartedly brings her zip-loc of silly bands to school every day, but I have no knowledge of a single trade.

At least this takes care of that pesky line at the cross-bars during recess. Maybe there's still hope for the 2020 Olympics.