Flipping Backpacks

I used to have a MySpace account.  I started my blog there.  But after I had a few too many technical difficulties, I moved the blog here.  I have since closed the MySpace account.  I hate to lose all of my blogs from that time, so from time to time I'm going to repost them here. 

I'm kind of going through the old posts randomly.  This one was originally posted on March 4, 2007. 

He slowly, carefully pulled the blue backpack towards himself. Quietly, he started to pull the notebooks and papers out...

"You're not really going to do that with me sitting right here, are you?" I asked.

"Wha?" he asked, feigning innocence like the guilty do.

And as he said that, he quietly pushed the backpack back towards its owner's seat with his foot.

This is a prank that I only got introduced to when I started subbing. I never saw it when I was a student. The prankster "borrows" a classmate's backpack, removes all the backpack's contents, turns the backpack inside out, replaces the contents, zips it back up, and puts it back from where he got it. It's harmless, silly, and it annoys the pranked. As the teacher I'm supposed to stop it (if I catch them).

I actually haven't seen this gag in a while. I thought that perhaps it had gone out of style. Maybe I just haven't been in the classes where it's most likely to occur in a while. Because it's not gone. This all happened on Friday.

In an earlier period this happened to another student. He was so upset, slamming his stuff as he reflipped the backpack. And of course the purported culprit (several students in the class identified him) denied any involvement. So, I turned my "flipping" radar back on. But apparently it needs some serious repair. Later in the same period described earlier, that same blue backpack did get flipped. The owner was putting it right not ten minutes after the above encounter.

Sigh. I tried. I really did.