I would have replaced it.

I'm thankful for bags with tags.

A week ago when Rachel left for her Experiential Education trip, someone told her to put a name tag on her carry on bag. A bit of overkill, I thought but given Rachel's distractability, probably a good idea. Hah! Little did I know. In this case, it wasn't Rachel's distractability we had to worry about.

When we met Rachel at the train on Saturday, it was a rather chaotic scene. She jumped off the train, came and gave us all hugs, handed me her bag (yes, I said, handed me her bag) and dove into the chaos of unloading all the bikes and duffel bags from the luggage car of the train. In the process of unboxing her bike, I set her bag down, right there, right where I couldn't miss it, right where I wouldn't forget it.

We ran an errand in Glenwood, drove the 45 miles back to Aspen, unloaded the car and Rachel asked me for her bag. The one with her book and her pretzels and . . . her iPod. The one I had left sitting on the train platform 45 miles away.

"Mom! How could you?! I made it the whole trip without losing anything! Someone's going to steal it!"

Well, nothing we could do about it at that point, except wait until school on Monday and hope that one of the teachers noticed it, picked it up and rescued it.

Which, thanks to the name tag, is exactly what happened. Phew!

But, I would have replaced her iPod, the one she bought with her own money. If I had had to. I'm sure glad I didn't have to.
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