By Tim Binnall
For the past two weeks, a famous scene from the film A Christmas Story has repeatedly unfolded in real life on the playground at an elementary school in Minnesota. According to a local media report, a whopping six students at the Emmet D. Williams Elementary School in the city of Roseville have wound up with their tongues stuck to icy poles during recess in a manner akin to when the character Flick in the legendary holiday movie is triple-dog dared to pull off the feat. "You just can't make this stuff up," marveled principal Jen Wilson about the spate of strange incidents.
"You know how you see the movie and the kid is screaming and crying and stuck? That's kind of what it looks like here," she said, "they're trying to talk and cry and scream at the same time, because it kind of hurt." While some of the students who found themselves in the sticky predicament waited for help to arrive, a handful of others reacted to the situation by painfully ripping their tongue from the icy pole. Fortunately, none of the incidents required intervention from the fire department, so at least the kids were spared the same embarrassment which befell Flick in the film.
By the time that the sixth student got stuck late last week, Wilson realized that the foolhardy idea had become something of a sensation on the playground and sent an email to teachers to be aware of what was happening. The principal noted that the odd trend is unlike anything she has seen before at the school and indicated that it largely seems to stem from "an independent student just testing" what they'd seen in the movie. Adults charged with keeping an eye on the kids when they are outside are now armed with bottles of warm water in the event that they need to free any future Flicks.