Stowaway

For some reason, there's one daily (well, WEEKday chore) that Gaby is responsible for, that she never ever manages to get done despite it being the easiest of the chores she has to do on a regular basis.

She can't seem to remember to hang her backpack up. Like, ever! I'm pretty sure if I were standing next to her backpack and point at it like car-show models point out sweet new options on this year's cars, shed look at me as if I'd completely lost the plot.

So, after we tucked her into bed, and I began to tidy up the front room, I noticed an all too familiar site . . .

Gaby's backpack on the chair.

I went to pick it up thinking it was as light as it normally is and was shocked when it didn't just lift up easily, yet felt like it was filled with bricks. You know how you pick up what you think is an empty bottle of something you were drinking only to discover, oops! That wasn't as empty as I thought it was. Usually when I do that, I pick it up so quickly that I end up spilling most of whatever was still in the bottle, all over myself. That's kind of what picking up Gaby's backpack was like.

I could not figure out just what the hell she would have stuffed in there that would make it so heavy! Sometimes she'll try and get away with shoving 5 or 6 of her Monster High Dolls, a pair of black boots she's been told at least a million times that she is NOT allowed to wear with her school uniform, a few books from her library, and a partridge in a pear tree into her backpack.  I usually notice she's trying to escape the house with contraband when the weight of the backpack makes her hunch over like Quasimodo, or alternatively, she falls backward onto her ass.

I assumed she was trying to get away with more of the same except this time, she threw a few bricks in there for good measure.

I reached around the side of the backpack to unzip it in order to inspect and then most likely empty the pack of whatever was in it when I noticed a little pink nose poking out at me. . .

Are you kidding me? Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

Yes, apparently there was a 25lb cat in her backpack, and I bet you can guess which cat it was!

There's no way in hell she put him in the backpack because he wasn't in it when she went to bed. Nope, he was actually at the foot of her bed. At some point he managed to get into the bag and when Gareth was walking around earlier in the evening, he zipped the bag up not realizing anything out of the ordinary was in it.

There are a lot of things that parents find in their children's backpacks. Moldy sandwiches from months earlier, chewed pencils, doodle-covered folders and binders, secreted notes that were passed between classes, and for older kids- much scarier and more um, interesting items. Even so, one never ever expects to find a cat curled up in there!

I suppose, ten years from now if this is the worst of what I find lurking in Gaby's backpack, I will consider myself very lucky!  

Just the same, I'm going to have to be extra vigilant to make sure she doesn't end up taking more than her homework to school with her from now on! 

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I composed this post entirely from my iPhone and I know the photos are crappy.  I took them with my phone and then used an app I dug up somewhere to try and watermark them you know ,because otherwise some dipshit in Massachusettes is going to jack another photo of my cat and claim him as her own.  

In a pinch, this isn't a bad way of composing posts, but cheesez of Nazareth do my thumbs hurt!   I know people who blog almost exclusively from their phones, having stunning images embedded in their posts that they took with that very same phone, and practically professional looking watermarks on their photos.    These folks must all have thumbs of steel and patience made of the same stuff, because there's no way I could manage this more than a few times a year.   Oiy!  My aching thumbs!