Student story-This story's in the bag

By Nikki Koppers
Bags are everywhere — hanging over girls’ backs, clinging to shoulders and causing neck pain. And everyone at Flint Hills Publication Workshop seems to have one.

Searching through the mess of a typical camper’s bag reveals much of the same. For girls, multiple Vera Bradley cases, a cell phone, a Holiday Inn room key, a notebook and an extraordinary amount of Manhattan swag screaming about “The Little Apple.”

Get past these camp essentials and secrets come out. Each item found has a story behind it.

Take senior Hailey Lapin, for instance. A glance inside her large tote decked out in Vera Bradley’s signature swirls immediately pegs her as a good but disorganized student. Littering the bottom of her bag are final study guides and AP test booklets left over from the school year — evidence of her 3.8 GPA. Lapin, an English buff also never leaves home without her edition of “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and a few copies of Shakespeare’s various works.

Strewn in the depths of her bag, a white piece of flair lies at the bottom with a crossed out R emblazoned on it. The button is a relic from Blue Valley Northwest’s campaign to stop the usage of the word “retard” in common conversation. In another corner folded up at the bottom of the tote lays an old birthday card given to her from a fellow actor in a play she performed in last school year. She also carries around a Superman stress ball for good luck.

On her own Vera Bradley tote Lapin had to say, “Don’t judge a book by its cover, just because I have a Vera Bradley bag like everyone else doesn’t mean that the inside doesn’t hold anything unexpected.”

And it does. Things might not guess. She’s a thespian. She fights for special education rights and volunteers with Special Olympics. And she’s a little superstitious.

All from looking through her bag.

But Linley Sanders, a sophomore at Blue Valley Northwest, doesn’t have much besides a notebook and room key in her bag, but that alone can speak volumes. To most, she seems practical, and doesn’t seem to hold much of an attachment to material things.

Sanders, who doesn’t normally carry a bag reflected on her new usage, “At school I don’t always carry one around because I have my locker, but with the 10 minute walk back to the hotel it is very handy to have a bag.”

The majority of the boys at FHPW don’t carry much in their bags. When asked what he carried Tim Schrag, teacher’s assistant, only carries his laptop case, and says that is all he needs.

Daniela Morales always carries a book of matches with her. After asking why she has them on her, she said sheepishly, her eyes rolling, “Well, we were going to make smores today, but I also like lighting things on fire. On the Fourth of July, me and my friends poured gasoline on trash in the street and just lit it on fire with these matches.”

On that note it is safe to say you never know what you may find in someone’s bag.

Nikki Koppers is a junior at Notre Dame de Sion and a student in the advanced writing class at the Flint Hills Publication Workshop.