I hopped into the car and set off to my first school of the day. I started a new job this school year where I get to mentor new teachers across the district. Going from site to site is now part of my daily routine.

Packing smart is a huge part of this work. Making sure you have adequate food and beverage is important (not to mention making sure you know which schools have bathrooms that visitors can access). I need to tote my work materials around with my glasses, sunglasses, and various other essentials. And of course I need to make sure I have enough gas.

On this early winter day, I slung my backpack in the passenger seat. When Axel is in the car with me on weekends, he complains that I expect him to hold my stuff as I drive. But really, he's sitting in the seat my bag goes in.

When I started my new job, I first got an over the shoulder bag. That turned out not to have enough compartments; no wonder almost every single other mentor had a backpack. So I got one too.

Well, the backpack I picked out - more fashion backpack than utility - didn't have enough compartments. Then my friend Silvie suggested a backpack organizer. Brilliant! Now I have tons of compartments and rather than losing things because they're not in a compartment, I lose things because I don't know which compartment they're in.

I headed down the alley only to hear an annoying beeping sound come on in the car. I checked the dash, worried there would be some sort of tire pressure gauge going off.

A light was on indicating that the seatbelt wasn't buckled.

But my seatbelt was buckled, as always.

Then I looked at the dash again, only to see there was a "2" next to the seatbelt icon.

Oh. My passenger had forgotten to buckle up.

I tried repositioning my bag to deactivate the sensors.

Even as I waited at the stoplight to turn onto University, the beeping continued. The repositionings weren't doing a thing.

As I got closer to the freeway, I leaned over, grabbed the seatbelt, and clicked it in.

The beeping stopped.

As I merged onto the freeway with my buckled-up bag in place, I realized this actually was for the best. Not only was my bag heavy enough that the car thought it warranted protecting, but if we had any sort of impact, that thing could be a hazard. Jam-packed with my computer, my oversized resource binder, various folders, books and manuals, it was almost a living companion to my daily adventures.

And don't worry. Whenever Axel sits in my backpack's seat, I make sure he buckles up too.