Home Ec Memory
2:33 p.m. - 2007-05-23


I was writing an entry for my sewing blog that reminded me about my first year of high school. I was the victim of unsophisticated theft when I was a freshman in home ec class. For the unit on cooking, we had to have a recipe box to store our recipes in, among other items like an apron, and these supplies were kept in a large cupboard with slide-out bins, one assigned to each of us. One day, shortly after we were supposed to have all our supplies, I went to my bin to get my recipe box, and it was gone. My box, which I actually still have, was a cream-colored metal box with hinged lid, with a colorful pattern of leaves and fruit on the top and sides. I used one of my dad's finishing nails to scratch my name on the back, back of the lid, inside bottom of the lid, inside bottom of the box, and on the outside bottom. I guess I was not too trusting, and with good cause it turned out.

When I could not find my box, I immediately had suspicious thoughts and started going through all the bins until I found a box that looked just like mine. Every place where I had scratched my name was painted over with black paint, except that the person forgot to look on the outside bottom. I took the box to the teacher and showed her, and she made me show her the bin I had found it in. I took the box home and washed the paint off and used it for the rest of the year. I don't know what happened to the thief or what her name was.

Eventually, my sister used the same box in her home ec class too, because her name is scratched on the inside back side of the box. That's about the only place I left her to put it.