RANSOM NOTE – My very first semester of teaching, I had a few boys in one class
that liked to joke around with me every day.
They had recently taken an interest in my small teddy bear with a t-shirt from the
UCLA, the college I graduated from, that sat on my computer printer. One of
them asked me how much I would pay for the bear and if I would pay 1 million
dollars for it. I laughed and said I’d only paid $10 for it originally, so no.
The following day I walked into that class to find a folded piece of paper in place
of my teddy bear. When I opened it I literally laughed out loud. It was a legit
ransom note, complete with cut out and pasted letters that said “If you ever want
to see your bear again, give us $1,000,000.”
The next day I had my own note waiting for them as I quietly stepped out of the
room before class started. It read, “If you ever want to see an A again, give me
my bear.” The bear was sitting on my printer again by the time the bell rang. The
boy kept my note in his binder the whole year, and I still have their ransom note.