From what I can deduce from the over-stuffed Lost & Found boxes at their schools, my kids are hardly unique in their knack for misplacing important personal items. Still, last night was special. My son, who turns 10 in a few weeks, managed to pull off a Daily Double of Misplacement so epic and unlikely that I think it deserves a shout out.
Adam had his first session at his new math tutoring program—the highly-regarded Mathnasium, at their office on the Upper East Side. Coming from work, I arrived a few minutes before 7pm to take him home once his session was over. But it was also my first opportunity to meet the head teacher of the East Side office in person, so she and I took a few minutes to chat about Adam and their game plan for him. I couldn’t have been happier…until Adam, in an unusually soft-spoken and polite manner for him, approached us about leaving.
“Excuse me, Dad, are you going to be a while? Because I think I left my backpack at Subway?”
The implications of his remark took about a micro-second to hit me. Need I elaborate? The loss of his backpack—with his school books, homework sheets (past and present), and school bulletins—would be a pretty big hassle for my wife and I, not to mention Adam’s teacher. The better outcome would be to retrieve it. So, after a quick look around the math room to assure me that it wasn’t there, I agreed on a mad dash to the Subway shop a few blocks away.
“Where’s your coat?” I asked.
He nodded, maybe a tad regretfully. “The thing is, it’s in my backpack.”
Ah! Okay, so, as much as I wanted to delve further into my growing wonderment over how he and his caretaker managed to leave his backpack and winter jacket at Subway, and then not realize it while they walked a few blocks in fairly cold weather from Subway to Mathnasium—and still not realized it after they arrived at Mathnasium and waited for his session—I restrained myself. It would have made him feel really bad and, visibly at least, he wasn’t there yet. We focused on walking, on getting there fast. If anything, my instinct was that the backpack (and the jacket) was probably still there, that most customers would hand it in, or leave it alone.
Fortunately, I was right. One of the Subway workers, who couldn’t have been more kindly, had retrieved it. I thanked him. Unnecessarily, I tried to tip him, too, but he refused.
On the way home, I pointed out to Adam how this could have had a much less happy ending, and requested that he be more mindful of keeping possession of his backpack and his coat. But, in truth, I felt a bit like I was following the parenting script I was supposed to follow, with no clue whether it would matter or not. My guess is that he had a learning moment without me hammering it into him.
As to why and how this happened? It might have had to do with anxiety about starting a new tutoring regimen at a new facility (which is worth exploring). It might have been that he loves his new blue sweatshirt more than his winter jacket (a fact) and didn’t feel that cold on the walk from Subway to Mathnasium. Or, maybe, the best explanation is that losing stuff is just part of being a kid. I wonder if it’s more of a boy thing than a girl thing, but my 13-year-old daughter has managed some epic disappearances of her own. In fact, if you know the whereabouts of my wife’s winter boots, my email address is below.
Eric Messinger
