Flagpole Danger

In the past six years I have witnessed some pretty crazy stuff: explosive vomiting in the middle of class, bloody noses, strange mishaps involving pencils and skin, and you can only imagine what else middle school students might think of. But today far surpasses anything I have seen to date. Keep in mind it was 14 BELOW zero (with the wind chill) after school today during dismissal. The middle schoolers came out of the building to get in their nice warm cars when one of the boys (and probably others, too) thought it would be a grand idea to stick his tongue to the flagpole. So, he did. Screams erupted, shouting ensued, and I thought one teacher was going to faint. Thankfully our fearless and brave science teacher was right there and prevented the student from ripping his tongue entirely off of the pole. A little warm water later and the tongue was saved. Although, I did see quite a bit of blood coming from his mouth and heard rumors that part of his tongue was still stuck on the pole. I did not get visual confirmation of that. Now as far as a tongue-lashing over the weekend from his parents, I don't know if his new-found popularity among his peers will outweigh that.