Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Cleaning Out the School Backpacks

One of my sisters-in-law has two school-aged children, and a certain selective procrastination.  Maybe this is learned avoidance behavior.

At the end of each school year, her kids come home and joyfully cast in the corner of their rooms their no longer needed backpacks.  They remain in place until she finally can no longer stand the squalidness of the preadolescents' bedrooms due not so much to the clutter, but the aroma!

Anyway, she decided to be a paragon of housecleaning while I was visiting, and tackle the backpacks.  To her horror, in her son's she found a half-eaten hamburger still in its wrapper, an elastic cloth device referred to as a jock strap, an old copy of Maxim, some papers with what looked to be beverage stains, and numerous objects not readily identifiable.  There was three books, those 'required reading' literary works for English.  Even with the questionable contents removed, the backpack still reeked too much for it to continue being in the house.

I cleaned out the other one.  Her daughter's at least smelled better; but it smelled due to leakage from a bottle of cheap perfume of a brand favored by a popular singer.   This was chemical warfare, grade school style.

  Apparently my darling niece circumvented parental injunctions against scents by having a bottle of contraband at school.  Oh well, there was likely to be a painful scene later on.

She decided that both backpacks were beyond rehabilitating, and trashed them both!

6 comments:

MarkD60 said...

I'm sure both backpacks were "just getting broken in" and the kids were upset they were thrown away.

Wish I had that half a hamburger! McDonalds? It's still good for the next 10 years at least!

Bilbo said...

Was the old copy of Maxim part of the required reading literary works? Given the way some schools are dumbing down nowadays, I wouldn't be surprised.

Banana Oil said...

Sad to have them discarded just when they were gotten broken into!

TexWisGirl said...

good call!

Elvis Wearing a Bra on His Head said...

Maxim is a necessary required reading for any preteen guy. Girls go with Cosmo.

Mike said...

I thought jock straps were proved unnecessary but a quick check showed they are making a come back.