A mom who posts on Instagram as @jillzfoodz___ sat down on the floor with a dusty JanSport and a camera and went through it pocket by pocket. The text on screen says she is cleaning out her daughter’s backpack from last year, and the post is tagged #highschool. It takes her 70 seconds to empty the bag, and almost every item gets a reaction.
The first thing out of the front pocket is money: a $20 bill and a $10 bill. She does an impression of her daughter, “Oh, I have no money, Mom,” and then answers it herself. “Maybe because it’s all in…” she says, looking at the bag, before settling the matter: “finders keepers.”
It goes downhill from there. Next comes a crumpled wrapper and a small clear spray bottle with liquid in it and nothing on top. “No cap? No cap,” she says. Then a teal squishy ball, coated in lint and dirt. “What is this? It’s got stuff all over it and it’s… ugh, weird.”
A small white digital camera gets a question instead of a groan. “Why do so many kids have digital cameras?” she asks. “Your iPhone has the best camera.”
Then she unzips an inner pouch and finds the real damage. Something pink and sticky has stuck itself to paper and to the lining, and she has to pull to get it loose. She holds up the mess and gives her verdict: “Okay, so this backpack’s ruined.”
The finds keep coming. A broken pink claw clip: “This used to be my claw clip.” A fun-size Kit Kat: “This is probably from Halloween.” A half-eaten lollipop back in its wrapper, which gets only a gasp. Hair ties and two quarters, which bring out a familiar line: “Money doesn’t grow on trees.”
The beauty products are their own category. She pulls out a tube of Summer Fridays lip balm and gets the name slightly wrong while making her point: “She made me buy her a brand new Summer Saturday.” A one-ounce Touchland hand sanitizer spray is next, and she is not impressed by its presence. “What good is this going to do when you grow a strep throat in your bag?”
Then the gum. A dried, chewed piece is stuck to a wrapper and to a spoolie brush. “This is all gum,” she says. It has also gotten onto several tubes of pink lip gloss. “All over the lip glosses,” she reports, and then finds a second brush in the same state: “Another spoolie with crap on it.”
The biggest discovery is near the end. She lifts out a large pair of white over-ear headphones and gasps. “My headphones that I’ve been looking for!” She follows it with another impression of her daughter: “I didn’t take it, Mom, I swear!”
One more small white bottle comes out. She looks at it, starts to ask “why is it…” and gives up. “We’re done here,” she says, and reaches over to stop the recording.
Add it up and the bag held $30.50 in cash, two things that belonged to her, at least three pieces of old candy and gum, and a makeup bag’s worth of lip products, all of it sitting untouched since the last school year ended.
There is plenty in this cleanout that other parents can use before the same thing happens at their house.
Empty the bag in the last week of school. Everything in this video got worse by waiting. The candy she guessed was from Halloween was still there the following year. The gum had time to dry onto brushes and gloss tubes. The pink substance in the inner pouch bonded to the lining and cost the family a backpack. A bag emptied in June can usually be used again in the fall.
Check every pocket, including the ones inside. The cash was in the front pocket and the worst mess was in a zipped inner pouch. She found both because she opened each compartment in turn and did not just tip the bag upside down.
Look there first for missing things. Her claw clip and her headphones were both in the bag, and she says she had been looking for the headphones. Before replacing something that has disappeared from a house with a student in it, the backpack is worth a search.
Keep food, gum and makeup apart. The lip glosses and spoolies were ruined because loose gum ended up beside them. A small zip pouch for cosmetics and a rule that wrappers and chewed gum go in a trash can would have saved most of what she pulled out.
Put cash somewhere it will be found. Thirty dollars sat in a front pocket long enough to be forgotten by the person who said she had no money. A wallet or a single assigned pocket makes it harder to lose track of.
Finally, do it with the student in the room. This mom did the job alone and voiced her daughter’s side herself, twice. With the owner of the bag sitting there, the questions she asked the camera, including what the mystery bottle was and how the headphones got in there, would have had someone to answer them.