As Johnny lays his head down to sleep after Mom reads him The Night Before Kindergarten, his nigh-night story of the night, his backpack sits by the door. Filled with crayons, glue sticks, and Kleenex, his shiny new bag is ready for Johnny’s big day.

When Johnny throws on the straps of his football covered backpack, it completely covers his body. As he runs to the car the backs of his knees hit the bottom of the bag and the tightening straps, long from pulling them as tight as possible, drag across the ground and through the dirt. The bottom of the bag picks up crumbs and dirt, thrown onto the floor of Mom’s Suburban, as Johnny climbs into his car seat. Before Mom even puts the car in park in front of the school, Johnny is unbuckling and jumping out onto the sidewalk dragging his oversized tote behind him.

Collecting dry leaves and more dirt to the newly added artwork of his once brand new bag. Once Johnny finds his class, Mrs. Hershire exclaims, “Welcome Johnny! I am so excited to have you in my class this year! Please take your glue sticks, crayons, and Kleenex out of your book bag and go put them on the back table.” Johnny unzips his pack at lightning speed, but as he looks inside his shoulders slump and his head droops. There was a 24-colored abstract drawing on the yellow lining of his backpack.

“Teacher,” Johnny says through quivering lips, “my crayons…” was all he could get out before breaking into a whimpering puddle over his waxy mess.

“Oh Johnny,” Mrs. Hershire squats down to speak to him, “It’s okay, we can clean up this mess, no problem! All of the crayons go right back into the box like they’re brand new!”

“But, but my football backpack!”

“Oh sweetie, I’m sure your mom will wash it for you when you get home. Here, take your box of crayons back along with your other materials back there.” Mrs. Hershire points to a desk in the back of the room where Johnny’s classmates were stacking Kleenex boxes and throwing glue sticks haphazardly all over the table.

After school, Johnny shuffles back to Mom’s car head slung toward the ground, dragging his back pack over the same dried leaves and dirt as the morning, except now the sprinkler had been going, and his bag had mud streaks and soppy leaves stuck to it. As he reluctantly climbed into the car, Mom asked, “Johnny what is wrong? Did you not have a good first day at Kindergarten? Did you like Mrs. Hershire?”

“Mommy, my crayons spilled all over my bag and then the inside turned pink and now there’s mud and leaves stuck to my bag! Mrs. Hershire told me you would wash it for me in your magic machine.”

“Well, of course I will wash it for you honey, I know it was a mistake, but I can’t wash your backpack every day, so you have to be extra careful to keep it clean from now on.”

“Uh huh, o-kay Mom.” Johnny breathed out in between his gasping and tears.

When they arrived in the garage Johnny hopped out of the car with his bag slung over one shoulder, determined to get to the laundry room and get the bag clean in the magic machine as soon as humanly possible. Pulling coloring pages and information papers out and throwing them behind his back, he opened the door of his magic machine and pushed his football-clad tote in. Then, sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce, as Mrs. Hershire had taught him at school that day, when Mom came in his hands were folded into his lap, and Johnny was waiting patiently for her to come and put the laundry machine on the Heavy-Duty cycle, so that he could sit and watch his beloved crayon-carrier go around and around in circles. “Okay Johnny, this is going to have to wash for a long time to get all of the dirt, mud, leaves, crumbs, and crayon stains out of it. You can go play if you want, and I can come get you when it is time to hang your bag up to dry.”

“No, it’s okay. I want to watch the magic machine make my pack-pack clean.”
And he did. Johnny sat through the 45-minute washing machine cycle, then as it beeped done, he waited for Mom to come and take the bag out of the machine and followed her outside to watch her pin it up to the clothesline.
“Johnny, it’s too windy out here for you to stay and watch your backpack dry.” So Johnny went inside, grabbed his favorite action figures, and sat by the back window, looking up every few minutes to make sure his bag was still there, still drying, blowing in the wind.

As it started to get dark, Mom came over and said, “It’s time to go get your bag Johnny.” Silently, Johnny followed Mom out to retrieve his newly clean bag. As Mom set the bag into Johnny’s outstretched arms, Johnny promised her, “I will never get this pack-pack dirty ever again.”

“Thank you for promising that Johnny, but you may get it dirty again by accident, but that is okay, because sometimes accidents happen, and as long as you apologize and realize what you have done, we can wash the bag and it will be okay.” Mom explained to her Kindergarten aged son.

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When Johnny entered his first day of middle school, he had finally graduated from his football backpack. After having to wash it another 176 times, and realizing that there was more duct tape holding it together than there was the original fabric, Mom decided to get Johnny a new backpack.

“Now Johnny, this backpack was very expensive, just please make sure not to spill your crayons on the first day again.”

“Mom,” Johnny, hearing echoes of crayon jokes in the back of his head, whines, “I don’t have crayons in middle school, and I’m not five years old anymore, I can take care of my things.”

At lunch, on Johnny’s first day of middle school, he spilled Mountain Dew on his brand new Nike backpack. When Johnny arrived at home with his head drooping and his backpack dragging behind him, Mom simply said, “Take everything out Johnny, I will put your bag in the magic machine for you.”