A Teacher's Worst Nightmare

Every year, during Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, I grade like a maniac. I may have been known to even neglect my family a time or two in favor of holing up somewhere to grade.

Well, apparently the Fates wanted me to change my anti-social behavior this year.

Before I left school yesterday, I thought, I will have so much time to grade while I'm in Idaho this weekend!  So I packed everything--two sets of quizzes, two sets of essays, a pack of journal responses--into my expandable file folder and stuffed it in my bag.

On the first leg of my trip, I graded a set of quizzes before settling down to read a good book.  (Hunger Games--it was excellent.)  I was so involved in my book that when I arrived at my layover airport, I continued reading for several hours before convincing myself, Rachel, you really need to keep grading!

So, grudgingly, I put down my book and opened my bag to find my expandable file...GONE.

This was my reaction:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I sat frozen and stunned for a full minute before I could compute the fact that, yes, I left the entire file on my first plane; yes, it's probably gone forever; and yes, I'm going to have to explain this to 150 teenagers on Monday.

I approached the Delta info desk and told them that I had lost something important and asked if there is any chance that I will be able to get it back.

"It's not likely," the worker said.  "A lot of times people aren't nice enough or honest enough to turn stuff in."

"Umm, I don't think it would be valuable to anyone but me.  I'm a high school English teacher, and it's all of my students' tests, quizzes, and essays," I responded, the pain evident in my voice.

He shook his head and started to laugh. "I bet some kids were just praying you would lose that bag!"

I bet they were.

Now I'm just praying they find it!