After 42 years, lost lunchbox at school finally found

A plumber working at a Virginia elementary school made a startling discovery: a Heathcliff lunchbox lost by a student more than 40 years earlier.

Roanoke City Public Schools said in a Facebook post that a plumber was doing maintenance at Fairview Elementary School and came across a metal lunchbox bearing images of the orange cartoon cat.

“Inside, we found a thermos that still smells like hot chocolate, an adorable drawing, and a tag with the student’s name: Tracy Drain, who appears to have been in Mrs. Curry’s class in Room 30,” district officials wrote. “The lunchbox appears to have been made in the early 1980s.”

The post eventually came to the attention of the correct Tracy Drain, who lost her lunchbox during her 4th grade year in 1982.

“I think it’s amazing,” Drain told WDBJ-TV. “If I would’ve been the person that found it, I would’ve put it on eBay, and it’s finders keepers, losers weepers. But it’s very interesting to be able to see it. As far as remembering it, I do not, but it has my mom’s handwriting, which I’ll treasure right here.”