I don't know why this keeps returning me in a semi-nightmare but it does: Years ago, when I was a substitute teacher for the LAUSD I worked in numerous different classrooms.
One day I was at Blank High (not real name) if I recall correctly, and during lunch I was working on my laptop and had a row of usb flash drives hooked up to it as I switched from one to the other. As I was doing my work , enjoying my brief lunch, a student knocked on the door. I knew him from a previous teaching assignment at a different school when he was younger a year or so ago.
He came in an acted as if he was so excited to see me again. He kept moving around by the desk and I attempted to be cordial to him even though he was starting to annoy me. I thought he was just an awkward teenager unable to express himself very well but nonetheless maybe needed some encouragement from a teacher he admired (or so I thought).
So I let him stay longer than I normally would. As we chatted suddenly he started coughing or sneezing and leaned in toward my desk as if he was off balance. My four or five flash drives were all connected to a cord in front of the laptop, and he sort of leaned into them...I though he had lost his balance and was trying to steady himself, but I realized later he was being intentionally deceptive.
A few minutes after this happened and I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable with him there and had stood up to let him know our chat was over, he left. It was not until later that I realized two of my flash drives were missing.
Unfortunately I didn't put two and two together until later, after I left, ...that this kid had stolen two of them during the fake coughing/sneezing off-balance escapade. I can't remember what I had on those flash drives, mostly a lot of photos from my various trips that I was trying to sort thru. Maybe also a few word documents.
It's always unsettling to think this kid went fishing thru my personal materials, ..fortunately nothing on there would incriminate me of anything inappropriate ... I don't do those sorts of things, but nonetheless he would be able to see my photos , where I traveled, etc.
It still bothers me to this day that I was taken advantage of in such a way and even more so that I didn't realize it was happening. Normally my guard is up for any and all kinds of "games" kids play when there's a substitute but this is one time that I got fooled.
Shame on this kid. I would know him if I saw him again, although I can't think of his name. I have some names in my mind I've given him however, but they can't be repeated here. Now I am trying to work thru a systematic prayer of forgiveness for this kid and try to root it out of my nightmares.
--
" If u declare with your mouth,
"Jesus is Lord," & believe in your heart
that God raised Him from the dead,
u will be saved."
Romans 10.9