With a new year, for the most part, comes a new locker. Sometimes, you’ll get lucky and the person who occupied the locker before you was courteous and kept it organized. Other times though, out of all of the possible lockers, you’ll just happen to pick the one that wasn’t exactly well-kept.

“I opened up my locker and I looked inside, the base was clean,” said Bryana Navarrete, Junior. “I opened the locker completely and there was a whole wall of gum on the locker door.”

Looking past the hideous amounts of gum you could find in a locker, it’s possible to end up in an almost completely opposite position. In my case, whoever it was that used my locker last year, was clearly organized and neat.

To my surprise, when I opened the locker I had chosen for the first time this year, there was a mirror inside and magnets and post-it notes stuck to the door. My first thought was that a senior from last year forgot to take everything with her or him, but my second thought was that it could have been a junior who hadn’t gotten to the locker before I had.

 Instead of taking the items with me, I decided on leaving them in my locker in case their actual owner returns for them. How they’ll find me, I don’t really know. Maybe one of those cliche notes that could be slipped into the cracks. The items may not exactly be expensive, but they’re still something.

As far as leaving gum and trash in your locker, take into consideration that you won’t be the last person to use that locker. Having one of your textbooks or binders stick to a piece of gum kindly left behind by the person before you can easily ruin a good mood.