Reports Of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

My body isn't even cold yet, and people are pilfering my belongings. I'd be spinning in my own grave if I was actually dead.

Perhaps I've mentioned how I am somewhat...um...how you say...protective of my classroom accoutrements. Don't mess with my stuff. That means my school-issued furniture and electronics and my personal electronics such as TV/VCR/DVD/microwave/refriderator/printer, etc. And whatever you do, don't touch the stuff on my desk.

I was absent today for a trip to Barnes-Jewish Hospital for my pre-surgery workup. My loving mother, my right hand, my indispensable child-care backup, went to pick up the boys after school. Upon walking into my classroom to wait for The Pony, she surprised the son of Arch Nemesis. He was standing at my desk, "going through things," as she put it. Granted, I had stashed away my two teacher's edition texts, and my old red gradebook, and my list of who's getting what awards, because I expect anarchy when a sub presides. But you don't expect grave robbers after school, especially when the corpse isn't even dead. According to my mom, Young Arch looked startled. She said, "Oh. What are YOU doing here?" And he said he had come to return Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's laptop. Screeeech! Hear that needle gouging vinyl? What laptop? And why?

Young Arch then scurried down the hall. My mom noticed that he was empty-handed. Which begs the question, How could he be returning a laptop if he didn't have a laptop? Mom said he was looking through a stack of movies. That's about all I left on my desk. Along with a written assignment, and the sub folder. The sub folder, which may or may not contain notes written about specific class behavior while I was gone.

Young Arch returned a few moments later with my laptop, and plugged it into the dock. He said his mom, Arch Nemesis, had needed it for a presentation, because no other laptops could be found. Give me a freakin' break already! We have at least two carts of laptops. I did not know that we had to cannibalize the equipment of absent teachers to pull off a presentation that had been scheduled for a month. It's not like I held a vital piece of lab equipment. It was my school laptop. The one checked out to me, just like the one she has checked out to her. Why was another one needed? Did Arch use it herself, or did a student use it?

Am I off base here, to be so incensed that something school-belonging to me was taken without my permission? I don't want to make a big deal of it if we consider all school equipment to be fair game for all school employees. But I don't want to be taken advantage of, either. Because once you let that big German Shepherd pee on you while you're wagging your tail at the end of your own driveway, you'll always be perceived as submissive. Just ask my dog Grizzly.