The Purse - Revisited

Well, Tuesday afternoon, Brit came in from school to report that her purse had been found. She wasn't yet in possession of it because the school's safety officer had taken a 1/2 day and she hadn't been paying attention over lunch when she was paged to the office.

So, Wednesday, just after 10 am, I received a phone call from the school on my cell phone. It was the school's safety officer. He was calling to inform me that Brit's purse had been turned in. He reported to me that the mp3 player and the cash weren't in it when it was turned in.

Actually, he wanted to discuss more than this with me. It seems that the purse had been found by a school custodian in the boys' restroom. This custodian turned it over to the school tracker (an adult male individual hired (?) by the school to walk to hallways looking for sluffers - kids who were cutting classes and hiding in, say, the bathrooms.) The tracker searched thru the purse before carrying it to the office and turning it over to Mr. M. - the safety officer. As he gave it to Mr. M., the tracker voiced concern over one of the items inside. A condom.

Yes, you heard me correctly. My daughter carries a condom in her purse. Mainly it is there to irritate me but it's there too in case she decides that she needs it. I pray that answer is ALWAYS no but I know how much peer pressure affects her. Anyway, Mr. M. was calling me to make sure I was aware that said condom was in the purse.

Yes, I knew it was there. Again, it is there mainly to irritate me. So, I figure the less said about it by me, the less she gets to irritate me with it, yes? And it worked out that it was more embarrassing for her that it's there than it is irritating for me. Mr. M. is her first hour instructor. She must now sit in his class each morning at 7:35 am knowing that HE knows she carries a condom in her purse.

I explained to Mr. M. how the condom came to be in her purse. It started out that she wanted to irritate me by buying one of those condom roses they sell in the mall at Spencer's. Yeah, it did its trick. It irritated me. Then, when that didn't get enough of a rise from me, she took said rose apart and placed its 4 or 5 condoms in her purse. Then she decided that they all didn't need to be there, that 1 should be irritating enough for me. When I saw it there, I asked her to remove it but she loved that response so she left it there. I shrugged my shoulders and went about my business.

So, Brit comes in from school and starts to tell me about getting her purse back. "The mp3...." "Yes! I know," I jump in, "is still missing and so is your $48." "How did you know?" she asks. So, I tell her about my nice 30 min chat with Mr. M. about her condom filled purse. She does me the courtesy of blushing bright red over hearing about this.

Well, it turns out that her mp3 player and money are not the only things still missing. Her "favorite" pink pencil as well as 2 of her new eyeliners and her new mascara are still missing as well. She isn't terribly upset over the cash and mp3 player being gone though. She is almost MORTALLY OFFENDED though that the perpetrators (she and her Woods' instructor and several classmates suspect 2 Hispanic boys of carrying out the crime) stole her 2 eyeliners and her mascara. "Dude! You just stole $48! Go buy your own mascara and eyeliner!" are her exact comments.

So, her expensive lesson turned out to be almost more embarrassing for her than painfully expensive though I am still upset over the cost of the missing items. *shrugs*

It did serve one purpose though! There is now NO condom inside her purse. She removed it Wednesday afternoon and placed it in her bedroom with the others from the rose.

I guess I count my blessings where I can. *sigh*