The Day I Found Dynamite in My Son’s Pencil Case
Life with Tommy and his Neurodevelopmental Traits has taught me that even ordinary chores, like packing his school bag, can come with surprises. This was one of them.
I was getting Tommy’s bag ready for tomorrow’s schedule, so I opened up his randoseru (the hard-shell backpack Japanese kids carry to school).
His pencil case was stuffed. Bursting at the seams.
I had a bad feeling about this.
It’s a soft, fabric box-style case, and it was bulging like I had never seen before.
“…What is in there?”
I opened it, very slowly.
Out came…
Dynamite.
Or at least, that’s exactly what it looked like. It was actually 12 colored pencils, wrapped in Scotch tape.
And it wasn’t just a quick wrap job, either. He had wound that tape around and around and around, so carefully that at first glance you’d never guess they were pencils.
“…Why?!”
As I dug deeper, I kept finding more.
A compass, wrapped in tape. An eraser, wrapped in tape. A ruler, wrapped in tape. Regular pencils, each one individually mummified.
And the grand finale: today’s school letter, wrapped in tape.
Seriously, what is going on here?
I couldn’t tell what the paper was until I unwrapped it. It looked exactly like trash. But I couldn’t just toss it, either. What if it was important?
And that tape? I had just sent him to school with a brand-new roll when the second term started.
Two weeks ago.
…
Please. Just stop.
And this is not the first time, by the way.
At the end of first term, when Tommy brought his school supply box home, its contents were a disaster. All sorts of things had been hardened in wood glue (the strong white adhesive, not a glue stick).
Several erasers were coated in layers of wood glue. His pencils had been sharpened at both ends, and the freshly sharpened tips sealed with more wood glue. His triangle ruler was bonded to his protractor. And the cherry on top: he had squirted wood glue inside the pencil sharpener.
What was he even going for?
Then there was the permanent marker incident.
He had gotten hold of a permanent marker (the kind we use to label his things with his name), and it was everywhere. Black pencils. Black erasers. And his pencil case at the time, a box-style one with Pikachu on it? Pikachu was completely blacked out. You couldn’t even tell he was ever there.
His ruler was black too. Of course, you couldn’t see the markings anymore. Was that a centimeter? A millimeter? No way to know.
It felt like such a waste, so I tried wiping it with nail polish remover. Maybe I could bring it back! I thought.
Oh, how naive I was. The ink came off, sure. So did every last marking on the ruler. It officially stopped being a ruler.
…
Does Tommy just hate pencil cases? Or does he get so bored in class that he has to modify something to pass the time? I’ve asked him, but I never get a clear answer.
All I know is that when I catch him, he gets this super awkward look on his face and slips away. So he clearly knows it’s not okay.
How many school supplies is he going to ruin? It’s such a waste.
This time, though, I figured the pencils might still be usable if the tape came off. So I asked Tommy to peel it off himself.
But Tommy struggles with fine motor skills. He couldn’t peel off a single one. He couldn’t even find the end of the tape. He’d tug at one spot, pull at another. Then, frustrated that nothing was working, he blew up at me, threw the pencil case, and melted down.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
And in the end, guess whose job it was?
Mom’s.
I sat there peeling tape, rescuing the dynamite one pencil at a time. Rescuing the compass. Rescuing the eraser. Rescuing the ruler. Rescuing the pencils. And finally, unwrapping the letter, which, just as I’d feared, turned out to be a pretty important one.
All I want is for him to use his school supplies properly.That’s all. That’s really all I’m asking.
What will it be next? …I’m scared to find out.
Whether it’s boredom or one of Tommy’s Rigid Preferences & Routines showing up in a new form, I honestly don’t know. He can’t quite explain it himself, either.
Please, please, please. Just use them properly.
That was one mom’s heartfelt plea.
