Parent life / One autumn term · 2015
He Lost the New Crested Sweater the Day After He Bought It
An Upper Canada College student told his story in the student paper in 2015: one expensive sweater, two weeks of silence, one email to his mother. Schools have since put lost-and-found online.
In November 2015 a student at Upper Canada College in Toronto wrote a column for the school's online paper, The Blue and White, titled "I Lost My Sweater." A teacher kept telling him that his plain black sweater, with no logo, broke the dress code. So, with permission, he bought the expensive official one, with the school crest.
The next morning he went to an early basketball workout, took off the sweater in a hurry, put it to one side, and forgot it. He did not find it for more than two weeks.
He did not tell his mother. For two weeks, he wrote, he denied everything whenever she asked about his visibly low mood. He had put his initials on the sweater, so a staff member sent his SOS to the whole school. Nothing. He checked the Used Blues Shop, where the lost and found is kept. Nothing.
Finally he sent his mother an email explaining. She replied the same day. He could pay for the lost sweater, and any future sweaters, out of his own savings. "No use pleading with the governor," he wrote.
Then, on his way home that afternoon, he checked the shop one last time, and there was the sweater, on a hook between two others. He was overjoyed, until it occurred to him, walking to his mother's car, that she probably would not care that he'd found it.
His moral: lie a bit longer, and "label your stuff with your full name, not just your initials."
Every child who has ever lost something expensive has discovered the same thing: the object was never the problem. The email was.
Some schools have taken the search online. In September 2025, Fort Hunt Elementary in Virginia photographed every item in its lost-and-found bin, gave each a numbered tag, and posted them in a gallery on the school website. Parents could browse from home, email the parent liaison with the number, and the item would be delivered to their child's classroom. One of the first items was a polka-dot jean jacket.
I have scrolled through it. I don't know anyone at Fort Hunt. I just find it soothing, like a museum of the recently misplaced.
Our middle one lost a brand-new fleece in September. He told us in October. It was in the car, under the seat, the whole time, next to the eldest's missing earbud and the youngest's missing shoe. We are going to start a gallery.
Sources
The public records, school pages and published accounts this story draws on. Where the story imagines a scene or a line of dialogue, that is the column’s telling, not a quotation.
- The Blue and White: RT — I Lost My Sweater tbaw.ca
- Fort Hunt Elementary: Lost and Found—September 2025 Gallery 1 forthuntes.fcps.edu
- UNIS Junior School: Getting Ready newsletter, June 2, 2024 sites.google.com
- Penn News Network: Lost and Found pnn.phmschools.org