Confiscated Items in My Desk Drawer

As I count down the final weeks of my teaching career before my retirement, I am going through my posts on teaching. This is a repost with some updates from my early days of blogging.

Almost every teacher has one; a drawer to store things that have been confiscated from students and/or items abandoned and left unclaimed in the classroom. I saw my little stash from last year hidden away in the back of a bottom drawer. Probably nowhere else on earth except another teacher's drawer does this combination of items exist.

1. A giant Mickey Mouse pencil. Nothing wrong with having a large pencil except when you are shoving it up alternating nostrils for the amusement of your friends. FYI- I handled it only with a paper towel and disinfected it with my trusty Germ-x before stashing it.

2. A Mexican wrestler's mask and cape. The story of how I acquired that would take too long to relate here, but suffice to say it's not cool to sneak up behind your teacher while wearing it and yell, "Arriba!".

3. A neon pink condom. Still in wrapper. (Thankfully). It was left under a table and has a boy's name written in ink on it, but I suspect it was a joke sprung on him.

4. A latex glove blown up like a balloon with the letters YOLO written on the fingers. The owner found that while you may only live once, you can also spend what seems like a lifetime in detention if you throw it from the window of the bus when the principal walks past.  

5. A People magazine with Heidi Montag in a swimsuit on the cover, detailing her many plastic surgeries and her huge breast implants. It's always suspicious when a group of boys is huddled around a table, staring down at something hidden from view, and then they immediately jump up when the teacher nears, smile and (poorly) pretend nothing is happening. I think the pictures of Heidi might still have traces of their drool on them.

6. A plastic wind-up penis that hops madly when fully wound, complete with a smiley face on it.

7. A laser pointer that was being directed at girls' chests one day on the way in from lunch. The owner assured me he had no idea it was on or that it had accidentally been aimed at the girls, but that he would never THINK of doing such a thing on purpose, ever.

8. An old book of prayers in Spanish. I guess the prayers were learned/ answered and so the book wasn't needed anymore and thus left behind in my room.

9. A pair of false eyelashes that extend at least 3/4" from the eyes. The poor girl who had them didn't know how to properly apply them and they continually fell off. She kept trying to stick them back on until the whole class was wrapped up in her drama instead of their work.

One thing I confiscated but didn't keep very long was the item in a small brown paper bag a quiet girl brought to school one day. She called me over before class and asked if I wanted to see what was in her bag. I assumed she had an interesting item for lunch, so I dutifully peeked in. The girl had been hunting with her family over the weekend and gotten her first deer. Inside was a fresh deer's tail. The principal's horror at seeing it equaled my own as she and I debated what to do with it. The girl's dad eventually came up to get it that morning.

So there it is; the good, the bad, and the just plain weird of what is in that drawer. Time to clean it out.