““I never understood those commercials with the parents celebrating the end of summer. Now I understand that around mid-August, all the summer camps are over and you’ve run out of constructive things to do with your kid and you are desperate to get them out of the house. You’ve grown tired of your four-year-old pointing to words and asking, “What does this say?” Apparently it’s not okay to respond to them with, “It says, ‘Learn how to read.’ ” You don’t want to get rid of your children, but you do want to get rid of them for a couple of hours a day. School seems like a perfect solution. Your precious child will learn something, and most important, you will be able to use the bathroom in peace.””
![“To say it was a beautiful day would not begin to explain it. It was that day when the end of summer intersects perfectly with the start of fall … [p.218 ff.]” quote by Ann Patchett](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/f72/ann-patchett-670_beautiful_to-say-it-was-a-beautiful-day-would-not_306547.jpg)
