I went to pick up the Captain this afternoon at the usual time, with Gal Smiley and Little Miss Sunshine in tow.
I stood at the usual spot at the edge of the school grounds, chatting with the other moms and watching the girls stomp in a puddle.
Then I noticed a red jacket lying at the side of the playground that looked a lot like that of a boy who lives in my house. Accompanied by surprisingly familiar mitts and a hat.
Coincidence? I THINK NOT.
So I scooped up the jacket and hat and mitts just as the bell rang. Out comes the Captain, who casually says to me, “Sorry Mom, I couldn’t find my jacket so I just came outside in my shirt.”
I expect to have, what, 15 or so more years of this? No wonder I have white hairs.
Of course, the Captain now has a whole lifetime of, “Don’t leave your jacket on the playground!” every day when he goes to school.
Revenge is SWEET.
TurtleHead 
You might have to be more specific.He could leave it in the school or on the side of the road or in a parking lot. Then he’s say, “but you told me not to leave it in the playground and I didn’t”. And then where would you be? (signed, Voice of Experience)
Another good reason why your kids don’t take the bus. If you hadn’t been there to pick the Captain up, you wouldn’t have seen the jacket, hat, and mitts. They would have slowly become covered in leaves and frost and snow and not emerge again until spring.
Week 2 of school my D left his hoodie there. Every day for a week I asked him, “Where is your hoodie?”, “Did you look for it?”, “Did you look in the lost and found?”. He claimed to have looked in the lost and found and it wasn’t there. But last years experience tells me that it was. Last year he lost a jacket, hoodie, shirt and hat. I recovered all of these items from the lost and found before a school council meeting. Last night was our first school council meeting and sure enough it took me about 3 seconds of digging in the L&F bin to find his hoodie. ARG…