Not just any kind of weed but a very high grade of weed. She called me on the phone frantic saying, “Mommi! Mommi! Someone put weed in my backpack!” I was asleep when I answered the call and hearing my child scream those words on the other end woke me up quicker than a triple expresso shot. I was up, dressed, and wearing Mac Ruby Woo lipstick when I arrived at her school 12 minutes after the call.
10:30 am — I enter the VP’s office just in time to see a SECURITY Representative going through the contents of my childs book bag. There’s a pile of pens and pencils, sinus meds (I’d given her days before, that she never took) pushed to the side, and various books. In the center of the table (all alone) was a small zip lock bag of weed.
“What happened?”, I asked. “Well,” says the VP, “It seems the kid found a bag of weed in her book bag while in her Honors Class – period 1. My daughter then chimed in, “I was in AVID when the tutor said today would be the last day we would need to bring our books to class, because there’s less than a week left in the school year and we have Monday off for Memorial Day. Great! So I began to remove my books and clean out my back pack. That’s when I found the small bag of weed in my pencil section. I freaked out and yelled, ‘WEED!?’ then threw it on the floor away from my book bag. My gf then picked it up and put it in the trash. I then got up and went to the front of the class and told the instructor that I just found weed in my book bag and that my gf threw it away. They advised me to go get it out of the trash, put it back in my book bag and that they would take care of the issue asap. That’s when I called my mom.”
By the time I arrived at the school, Security had already sniffed her bag, her hands, and sorted through her belongings. I support the search. Because my kid is not a smoker or weed connoiseuer. The VP assures me that she does not fit the profile, and that the small bag of weed was of a ‘high grade’, and is usually found with rolling papers, a lighter, matches, or a smoking bong. Then he said to me, “but we didn’t find her bong.” It sounded hilarious to me. My kid is a hard asthmatic and nerd. I said, “bong?” The VP said, “Yes. We’ve seen this before and weed is always accompanied with a way to smoke it”.
Well thank God my kid did not have a bong or any other aparatus on her. I think it saved her status quo. The VP then asked her if anyone else had been handling her bag. My kid said, “No, but yesterday when I was in passing between classes, it felt like someone was messing with the back of my backpack but when I turned around no one was there.” The VP then said, well the school is camera’d – we’ll rewind yesterdays tapes and see what we can find. My daughter then wrote her statement down, signed it and they sent her back to class. The VP asked me to stay for a few moments. I did. After my daughter was gone, he said that tomorrow is “BOOK BAG CHECK DAY” and that it is customary for them to do a book bag check at the end of every year, (much like what you go thru at the airport with TSA) and that if the weed would have been found tomorrow, there likely would have been an arrest and a long court battle in the AZ courts.
WOAH!
He said, my kid did the right thing in telling the teacher and ultimately coming to his office immediately after class and reporting it. He then said, “Yesterday we busted a kid with weed and conviscated his cell phone – went through it and found text exchanges about weed with 30 other students” in their school and that today “there is an investigation underway concerning the matter.” He assured me that my childs name was not on that list, and that this incident may or may not be associated with the current investigation. He was also skeptical of someone putting weed into my kids bag during passing, as they wouldn’t have enough time to do so — but still because that’s her story, he’d check the tapes.
We’re new residents to the state and the school district, so we knew nothing about the school system, drug issues, or official book bag check day. I am grateful to God that my kid found the weed TODAY and not tomorrow. We have averted a whole world of getting stuck in the justice system. The VP was awesome, he shook my hand and assured me he’d be in touch once he’d conducted his own investigation.
I left the school and went straight to my doctors office, I had an appointment and I was pretty sure my blood pressure was high. While I was there, I get a text message from my kid:
1 pm — “Mom, I’m on my way back down to Security”.
I’m freaking out again. Why is she going back? I text back to her, “Do I need to come up there again?” — she doesn’t respond. I pick up the VP’s business card and call him several times, (refusing to leave a vm). On the 3rd call, I reached his secretary, told her my concerns and she said, “I’ll have him call you back”. He called me back within 30 minutes and said, he did his in house investigation and rewound yesterdays tapes and sure enough he saw a guy standing suspiciously behind my kid in the hall way at the end of the school day as she made her way out of the school and to her bus. The guy was a student. “The camera shows him tampering with your daughters backpack. I sent the footage to security and they have called your daughter down to identify that that is her on the tape and to ask her to identify the male behind her. She identified him as a student she takes her last class with.” So again, my kid is off the hook, doesn’t fit the profile and didn’t lie about what she thought had happened to her as to how she got the weed in her book bag.
They said ‘thing is’ the guy who put it in her backpack knew about the book bag search that’s going to go down tomorrow and knew very well that my kid did not know about it. He’s one of the very few Black guys she knows [in this predominently White school] and he sets her up for a fall of the nastiest kind. Sheriff Arpaiho is not one to be messed with.
My child identified the student and the investigation is now moving on to the next stage — likely a 10-day suspension for the young boy who put it in her bag and a long bout in the AZ court systems as he’ll be charged with possession.
I asked her why would he do such a thing, and my kid said, “Well Mom, that’s the guy I told you about that sits next to me in math who turned to me one day and said, ‘See that’s why we don’t date Black girls’” [this coming from a Black boy]. When she first told me about that ignorant statement, I said, “Cool. Because you’re only 14 and you don’t date anyway”. Then she went on to tell me that he’s a freshman too and already has a baby, [by a black girl]. That’s when I told my kid she should have responded to his earlier ignorant statement of ‘not dating a black girl’: “Good, because you’ve got a kid already and I don’t babysit.” Hallelujah – he’s not interested in black girls [anymore] she dodged the bullet on that note — and today she dodged the DOJ train.
___________________________________________________________________________________
She had weed in her backpack - but it was not hers at all.
It was a ‘high grade’ weed in a clear bag – small.
It wasn’t hers and the school camera’s helped to foil the ploy
by rewinding the tapes and catching the weed culprit boy.
Later, I was talking to my doctor and she said weed at that school is no new score.
She was warned of the drug usage issue – from a member of the school board.
So her kid goes to a rival school, and the reports keep rolling in,
that the school my kid goes to is like Beverly Hills Nine-Oh-Two-Ten.
Uh-oh! and Oh No!
it’s a modern day 90210.
Beamers, Mercedes, and money by the wads.
My kid rides the bus and doesn’t smoke squat.
My blood pressure was high – thats why I went to see the doc.
Before the VP found the tapes, I thought my head would pop.
Thank God it’s over now and God bless the young man
that took it upon himself to insert weed — by his hands.
He’ll be dealt with tomorrow – if he hasn’t already today.
I’m Qui
Happy to be able to trust the words that my kid did say.
She had weed in her backpack,
but it was not hers.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think there is indeed more than one sun residing over Phoenix. I moved here Fall 2011 and the weather felt delightfully Spring’ish (compared to the cold/hot Texas weather). We are now in the early throws of Summer and every time I walk outside I immediately hear that song, “We built this city” [by Starship], but the words are tailored to capture the warm essence of Phoenix and is sang by Satan of course. The lyrics are as followed: 
