'Losing' my pencil case

I was in the 1st grade and one day in class when school was about to be over, and everyone were packing their things getting ready to go home, I wanted to start packing too.

While getting ready to pack, I looked for my pencil case. A light blue pencil case with a ‘Winnie the Pooh’ in the center. But of course, it was nowhere to be found. I looked on my desk, under my desk, on the floor, in my bag, and then again. But still nothing.

The bell rang and everyone went home. I started to panic. I’ve looked everywhere! How can it just disappear like that? And like any other 1st grader in the world who’s lost his pencil case, I started crying.

So the teacher comes to me and asks me what happened. I explain to her the situation and she helped me look. Still nothing. And that’s when I looked in my bag again, only this time, I looked in the front zipper of my bag. And I saw my pencil case there, and I thought to myself “…..oh righttttt, that’s where it was.”

That’s when I remembered, around the last period before school was over, I thought I’ll just put my pencil case in the bag first, then I’ll get a head start (bright idea). Then, just as I was putting my pencil case in the usual place with the books, I saw the front zipper that I never use for anything, perfect size for my pencil case too. So I thought I would ‘mix things up’ today, you know, keep it interesting (another bright idea) and put my pencil case in the front zipper instead. I guess I forgot about it afterwards (not so bright).

Ironically, I still have that pencil box after all these years. Still haven’t lost it.