Under the staircase of the first floor of the main building, tucked away in the shadows of Lick-Wilmerding High School, there is a place of incomprehensible treasure, impossible mystery, invaluable data, and inconceivable body odor. Here, one might find students scavenging for free items. Here, one might find one’s long lost sweater, a sock with a hole so big it acts as a sleeve, a dirty beach towel, or a $60 Hydroflask. Here lies the Lick-Wilmerding Lost and Found, a venture for only the strong-hearted.
The lost and found, according to receptionist Molly French, “hosts all the items found around campus at the end of the day. Valuables such as computers, phones, and keys are kept [at the front desk], the bigger items and accessories are stored in the filing cabinets under the stairs, and any other items are put in the gym. Once the lost and found starts to overflow, every month or so, we just give items away.” The success of the lost and found is contingent on mutual trust and understanding; it presumes the inherent virtue of humanity, that people will turn in items they find to the lost and found instead of keeping for themselves.
The lost and found has long been the most pressing and relevant topic of our generation, constantly burdening the minds of Lick students with its gripping enigma. The lost and found is microcosmic of the greater Lick-Wilmerding community in that it hosts everyone’s gone-missing items found on campus. The contents of the lost and found is indicative of the types of clothing most valued and most forgotten by the Lick-Wilmerding community. Clothing and accessories are representative of the outward expression of Lick students’ underlying values and backgrounds. Thus, through a quantitative analysis of the types of items and the duration of their stay conclusions on the Lick community and campus may be reached.
For two weeks in November, at precisely 12:20 PM, Monday through Friday, data was collected about the lost and found by digging through two of the three locations on campus, the gym and the science-wing filing cabinet. Items were counted by hand and organized into different categories based on item type, color, size and estimated price. Certainly, the number of blue hats in the science-wing lost and found compared to the number of black XXL shorts in the gym must unearth a profound revelation on the broader social dynamics of high school. Or perhaps the Z-Score of average estimated price for items in the lost and found based on the days of the week will lead to an accurate prediction of the score of the 2020 Super Bowl or solve the existence-mass gap of the Yang-Mills gauge theory of quantum chromodynamics. Surely the double-peaked skewed right distribution graph with possible outliers of the number of water bottles in the lost and found compared to the Air Quality Index (AQI) each day must be evidence that this article was not a royal waste of time—please…
In both the gym and the science wing lost and founds, water bottles were the most common items. Perhaps Lick needs a new student organization called Water Bottle Conservation Club. (“That’s a great joke and totally fine!” expressed Laura Boyd ‘20, a leader of Water Conservation Club. Thanks Laura!) Interestingly, water bottles also had the shortest average number of days in the lost and found. The paradoxical relation of the water bottles’ short duration in the lost and found and their frequent misplacing insinuates that water bottles are both important and unimportant to the student body. Thus, based on this thorough and absolutely foolproof research, the only conclusion with unquestionable accuracy that can be reached is the existence of The Bottle Burglar. Look around, naive students, for there may be a serial water bottle thief hidden amongst you good folk.
The data also shows that black was the color most often lost for all item types, making up 37.5% of all items. Of all the colors, yellow was the least likely to be claimed over two weeks of data collection, as all the yellow and gold items first marked in the lost and found remained there throughout the two weeks. Evidently, the lost and found exhibits more school spirit than the Lick student body.
The average cumulative estimated value of the lost and found on a given day, based on googling the original price of each item, is roughly $763.62. Accordingly, one could exchange the entire lost and found for 190 Popeyes chicken sandwiches, three sets of airpods, or one of Quavo’s resold Popeyes chicken sandwiches. The bounty of the lost and found, however, is truly priceless to the shops students in dire need of pants for machine safety or dance students in need of proper exercise attire.
The second of the two data sets tracks the best items to lose around campus and where you should lose them should you want them returned. Control items were placed around campus over a two week period. The Caf, the foyer, the library, and classrooms all had a return rate of 100% for items to the lost and found after only two days. However, the fifth location surprisingly had a 0% return rate for all items after two weeks. All five of the control items were forever lost in this fifth location. Thus, from this revolutionary experiment, one can accurately conclude the following world-changing revelation: if you put your items in the recycling bin, do not expect them to be returned.
Moreover, the control items placed around campus were rotated to uncover which items have the quickest return rate to the lost and found. The three colorful items had the quickest return rate of less than a day for every round. The two black items were returned after less than a day for four-fifths of the rounds and after under two days for the other one-fifth of the rounds. Accordingly, one can infer from these results that one should wear bright colors when venturing into the woods alone or solo-climbing mountains in a blizzard in case of getting lost — perhaps if James Franco in 127 Hours had worn a neon yellow shirt and some blue socks the movie would have lastedw only 12 minutes and 7 seconds.
Now back to the contents of the lost and found: in it mysteriously lay a 3 foot and 7.55 inch rope. The purpose of the rope: unknown, though it is suspected it originally belonged to either a cattle herder or a pirate here at Lick-Wilmerding. Also in the lost and found were two full size English dictionaries, one American Heritage College and the other Webster’s New World. Yes, someone out there somehow brought a full size dictionary to school and managed to lose it. Which is worse? The fact that this mistake was repeated twice, or that someone still carries around a full size dictionary? One can only hope that both dictionaries do not belong to the same poor soul. A half eaten unwrapped string-cheese was also found at the bottom of the second drawer in the lost and found. To the original owner of this string-cheese, you should know: the cheese honestly still looks pretty fresh if you were actually saving it for later. Just curious, what kind of a heinous fiend bites rather than peels their string cheese? Aside from the string cheese, there was a tupperware of old un-cheesed macaroni, a plastic bag of trailmix, a mug still partially filled with coffee, and a bushel of bananas wrapped in a beanie. Stellar work CHEF Club, you’ve truly outdone yourselves this time. A bottle of conditioner and a rubber ducky were also discovered amongst these other items. Strapped for time in the morning on a rainy day? An understandable explanation.
Ultimately, the lost and found is a scary, gross, and beautiful treasure trove. However, despite my best efforts, I could not seem to find my Shakespeare annotations for English class in the lost and found. I swear my fish ate them, Robin!
