The Backpack Test sprang from a contest I saw once posted in American Girl Magazine. “What’s in your backpack?” the posting read. Show them, and three lucky winners would be featured with short biographies. As a ten-year-old, I dumped out my burgundy GAP backpack for my very first test: Five-Star brand folders, a glue stick and sprinklings of pretty rocks I had collected, now gray from rolling around in a backpack. Nothing that could interest magazine editors looking for kids who packed their bags with curious relics. No Nerf balls, no slinkies, nothing Weird Al would approve of, like weasels or bear claws or 10-pound bowling balls. Not even left-over sauerkraut. I knew those editors sought the eclectic happenstance of life rolled into a portable sack. I aspired right then to create such a blend. They were looking for kids who were Interesting!
It had to happen casually. I knew I couldn’t just raid our house. American Girl Prize Winner Totes Japanese Fan, Pop Tarts and Her Mother’s China Doll Collection. It just wasn’t believable. The Backpack Test rated Interestingness by one’s unconscious grouping of often-used objects.
I went on to use the Backpack Test on prospective friends and lovers. Sometimes it’s a purse instead of a backpack, every once in a while a shopping cart. It’s surprisingly telling about morals, fetishes and basic standards of hygiene. Some people sport their eyelash curlers. Some, soccer cleats. Or taco truck wrappers. I live with a woman who comes home with basil sprigs in her purse.
What’s in your backpack? I’ll bare my soul to y’all and tell you what’s in mine.
1. An onion. A Walla Walla Sweet, for that matter. I met Jenny Gilbert at the crosswalk yesterday carrying them home from the Farmer’s Market. Oh delicious Farmer’s Market. “Want one?” she said. Of course.
2. Ah! A spider! As I sit and write, it has dropped from the ceiling. Ah, get it out! Do spiders like onions?
3. India ink. I hope to God it doesn’t spill, because when I paint I stick clothes in my backpack and expect them not to get ruined. I love India ink. It’s like eyeliner for art. Seductive, sweeping and makes the colors pop on everything it outlines.
4. An Ampad notebook, nine-and-a-half inches by six. When I studied abroad, you couldn’t find big notebooks like American students use. So now I buy them tiny.
5, 6, 7… a crumpled marigold, a butter knife, nail clippers, half a pink crayon; a metal clip museum pass from the Walker in Minneapolis; Iridescent Medium for watercolor, three types of black pens, a plum pit from the organic garden. An old Pio from which I cut words to make a Dadaist poem in art history. A blue paper crane, Venus razor refills, and a butterfly made out of a tea bag.
Your backpack tells stories you’ve already forgotten. Take the test.