The Things They Left Behind

Parents of Weston, have you been wondering where your Tupperware is? Well, it's in my classroom!

Now, you might be thinking: "But my child does not have you as a teacher, Mrs. Weiss."

Ha! That doesn't matter! Your Tupperware is still in my classroom. All sorts of students I don't know eat lunch in my room all the time. They say, "Hello, Mrs. Weiss." And I respond, "Hello, person I don't know." And then they leave Tupperware in my room.

It's the end of the school year, so it's time to clear out the lost-and-found area, also known as the pile of junk on top of my bookshelves. In addition to the textbooks that have nothing to do with journalism, there are notepads, binders, calculators, crumpled papers, highlighters, hair clips, phone chargers, earbuds, knotted-up plastic bags filled with P.E. clothes, art projects with pieces peeling off, math homework, Tupperware, coffee travel mugs, a rather nice black jacket, a pair of fashion glasses with clear glass, a knit hat, an application for National Honor Society membership, a prom ticket permission form, and someone's bat mitzvah T-shirt.

From my list of found favorites of the past, I will share two examples:
In the category of Most Valuable Item Ever Left in My Room, the winner is...a laptop.
In the category Most Inexplicable Item: an inside-out, balled-up pair of jeans.

The laptop was retrieved at the end of the same school day. The jeans were in my room for a couple of months. Periodically, I would hold them up and say, "Who the heck left jeans in here?" Finally, a boy responded one day with, "Oh! Those are mine!"

There is also in a constant state of flux a collection of Flashdrives that pile up on my desk throughout the year. Since I am in a computer lab, students who come into one class period invariably find Flashdrives stuck in the back of the iMacs from the class that just left. As soon as one gets retrieved by its owner, one or two more get turned in and tossed onto the heap. One day, I may just find myself buried in Flashdrives. Though if I really need to store them, I do have plenty of Tupperware.