I swear this really happened!

I remember in my youth the frustration of losing my stuff. You know, like my mittens, my pencils, my book bag. It happened with such frequency that my mother claims my standard excuses for nearly everything in my life were “I don’t know” and “I forgot.”

Then why is it that today’s youth never lose anything? At least from my perspective. Instead of “I don’t know,” the standard excuse seems to be, “Someone stole my.”

As in, “Someone stole my math book.” “Someone stole my pencil.” “Someone stole my lunch.” I’m forever solving these little mysteries by checking the victim’s backpack, desk, even pockets. It’s usually pretty easy. (By the way, I never experienced a truly stolen math book.)

But one day the mystery was a real conundrum. As I was in the hallway shooing 800 middle schoolers into their classes, one little 6th grader limps toward me from the direction of the gym with obvious (exaggerated?) pain and anxiety. I put on my sympathy and caring face.

Thinking he's been injured in a particularly raucous game of basketball, I ask, “What happened? Are you all right?”

“I hurt my leg and the office gave me some ice to put on it.”

“Did that help?”

“Yeah, but now it hurts again, because someone stole my ice!”

“Did you see who took your ice?”

“No.”

“Well, where was your ice when someone took it? If you were holding it on your leg at the time, I’m thinking you may have seen this person."

“No. Before I went to gym, I put the ice in my locker.”

“Didn’t you need your ice anymore?”

“No, I didn’t know where to put it when I was playing ball. So I put it in my locker. When I came back after gym class, it was gone.”

“So, let me get this straight. You hurt your leg earlier this morning, put ice on it, and then put the ice in your locker so you could participate in gym class. Your leg didn’t bother you enough to sit out of the ball game, but now you need your ice again.”

“Right.” At least he had the sense to look a little bit sheepish.

“Show me your locker. You know there’s a deadbolt on the locker, right? Did you share your combination with anyone? No? Then if no one else knows your locker combination, the only way someone could get into it is to damage the locker. I can usually tell because it will be all bent up.”

Together we inspect the outside of the locker. Not too surprisingly, it was all intact.

“Open your locker and show me where your ice was.”

He seems pleased at this, as though happy someone is finally taking his case seriously.

Locker open, he says, “I put it on the top shelf! And now it’s gone!”

I peer into the locker. “Was your ice in a little baggie?”

“Yes!” Happy we’ve found evidence!

“This one with all the water dripping out of it?” I pick up the wet baggie from the spill of water from the top shelf of his locker and hold it up for him to see. "Do you think it's possible your ice wasn't stolen? That just maybe, it...melted?"

On his face: recognition! And then confusion. And then genuine, painful sheepishness.

“I guess we don’t need to fill out that theft report. Go to class.”

Limp miraculously disappeared, he slumps off to class.

Really, I felt sorry for him at the time. Middle school is rough.