The Case of the Missing Potato Chip Baggies

For the past month or so, we’ve been so excited because Olivia’s come home each afternoon with most of her lunch gone. She hasn’t eaten her lunch at school most of this year so this was big news.

Except, there was one perplexing issue with this new development. She wasn’t bringing home the baggie in which her potato chips were packed.

Tom asked her if she was throwing the baggie away. She insisted she was not.

Finally, very recently, he decided he was going to get to the bottom of the missing baggies.

When she got home one recent Wednesday (because the specific day of the week is SOOOO important *eyeroll*) Tom had her afternoon snack of a cookie and a Reese’s peanut butter cup on a plate on the table. When she walked in the door, he very deliberately moved the plate to the counter and told her she’d get her snack when she told him what she was doing with baggies we sent her chips in.

She told him she didn’t know.

He told her he thought she did.

He left her in the kitchen to eyeball her snack and when to the computer in the living room. Olivia asked him from across the house if she’d get pie and ice cream that evening.

He shouted back, “Not until you tell me where the baggie is.”

Silence.

He called, “Bring me the baggie!”

She shrieked, “I don’t have it!”

He yelled back, “Where is it?”

She finally sighed and replied, “Ella has it.”

“Ella?”

“She gets in my backpack on the bus on the way home and takes the cereal bar, the cookies and the chips. Sometimes she eats them on the bus but sometimes she just puts them in her backpack and takes them home.”

Huh.

Now, I think we can all agree that if Olivia would eat her lunch at the appropriate time (lunchtime) in the appropriate place (cafeteria) each day, this would not be an issue.

But since she doesn’t eat it, this little girl, who is in the same assisted class with Olivia, takes it from her each afternoon on the bus.

Sigh.

Olivia said that another girl, younger than both Olivia and the food thief, has told E not to take Liv’s food. She’s also told Olivia to tell E not to take her food. Olivia shrugs and says, “I don’t talk on the bus so…”

Yeah. Unless she’s communicating with her dad, Olivia is NOT good with confrontation.

Tom wanted to know how Ella knew that Olivia had food in her lunchbox at the end of the day.

I asked Olivia about this when I got home that afternoon.

She replied, “Each day at lunch, Ella takes my lunch out of my lunchbox and puts it on the table for me. Then, when she isn’t looking, I put it back in the lunchbox.”

On one hand, I feel bad for this little girl because she’s probably hunger, which is why she’s taking Liv’s food. On the other hand, STOP TAKING MY KID’S FOOD. I don’t care that she doesn’t eat it at school. We don’t send it so that others can eat it. We send it every single day in the hope that Olivia will finally eat at school.

Obviously, I emailed her teacher, who was aghast at this situation. Like us, she had no idea this was happening. She told me she would speak to the principal the next day and figure out a solution. She then asked me if Olivia was ever missing anything else. She said she’d send money home with Olivia a few times when there was left over change from any of the field trips they’d taken as a class.

I confirmed that the money always made it home. E was only taking food.

So…that’s the case of the missing baggies.