Silly Canadians! Flagpoles are for FLAGS!! (1805 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.55 on 35 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Loren (View user info) at 2005-01-28 12:53:36 EST
Jesus jumping Christ. I'm sitting at my desk, as the days of my career at this piece of shit company come to and end, with my scarf wrapped around my neck and my winter coat covering my legs. Do you think they're trying to tell us something with the heat? Or lack thereof...? I digress...
It's fucking cold outside. I've been trying to warm up since I came in and it's not working. I seriously have to wonder about the sanity of you fucking Canadians. In NY we get about a dozen or so days like this, which are pretty unbearable. I cannot and don't really want to, imagine what months of this hell on earth must be like. At least it's not absolutely necessary to have "plug in parking lots" here. (Not that I would mind one today.)
What do you do with yourselves when the weather is like this? And when it's even worse!? I can't think of much else to do other than stay in bed, or drink myself silly, or both, and preferably with someone else.
I'd like to find other things to do with my limited amount of free time during these, the depths of winter's most misery-filled days, but I stop myself and remember not to take things for granted, because I'm always brought back to one of the most imaginative, if not the dumbest, ways one person in my past made his and my neighborhood's winter months more exciting. It never ceases to make me cringe.
Now, I don't know how many of you have ever done this, or witnessed someone else attempt to get a refreshing icy treat from a filthy, frost-covered metal pole in the dead of winter, but I have seen it.
Picture it: 1977. (Yes, back when John Lennon was still alive.)
I was a second-grade kid, sitting shyly on the big orange school bus like most days when we approached Steven's stop, a 6th grade boy, who at the time, I had a painful crush on. But as the bus slowed to a stop, it was apparent that something was amiss. We saw he was standing motionless and facing away from the street toward the woods, on the opposite side he should have been on, seemingly studying the metal encased base of a telephone pole at an oddly close vantage point.
Norma, the bus driver, waited for a moment, obviously not knowing what to make of the situation, then she slid open the bus window and yelled, "Steven, what's going on? Are you OK?"
This was met with a hand motion from Steven - a motion of "go away, you don't want to see this, and more importantly, I don't want anyone else to see this."
Norma became instantly aware of what was going on, even though none of the kids did yet, so she swung open the bus doors and raced across the street with her winter coat in hand.
In hindsight, she'd have been much wiser to have brought her mug of coffee... ah... panic, gotta love it.
Several minutes later, after watching her cover their heads with her coat like a vampires' cape, the heat from her breath managed to release the poor kid from his frosty bind. Not completely whole, however, as the entire top section of his tongue did not join him in his escape, and remained stuck on the pole, with little rivers of trickling blood quickly freezing underneath it.
This kid didn't just touch the tip of his tongue to the pole, he *LICKED* the thing like a like a fat kid with a lollypop. What could possess a bright kid to consciously walk across the street within minutes of the arriving school bus to lick a telephone pole? Anyone? A Canadian perhaps? Well, I'm sure he asks himself that question to this day.
Forgetting about him for a second, I was traumatized for months. Hell, I'm still not entirely over it. These situations are why the phrase "I did NOT need to see that!" is so widely used. To make matters worse, the boys on my school bus behaved like boys do, and would strain to see a glimpse of the tongue every time we passed it, screaming, "ewww, aaaack, gross!" with morbid glee.
Steven was out of school for weeks. It must have been pretty awful for him - pain notwithstanding - to see his tongue stuck to that pole every day he looked out his window. When he finally came back I asked him if he would show me his tongue, (the one in his mouth) and he obliged. It was like nothing happened. Tongues became the eighth wonder of the world as far as I was concerned.
Later on in life I reached that conclusion again, but that's a story for another time.
-------------------------------------------
Check this out:
"You may laugh at the folly, but every day in Canada, someone's tongue gets stuck to a frozen surface, but rarely is it in the form of a dairy treat. More often, it's a flagpole, a railing, or a door handle, unforgiving, unmoving metal mounts that want to inflict pain on your fleshy mouth muscle.
"We don't know what drives them to stick their tongues on frozen surfaces," said Rene Backstrom, researcher at the Le Bouche Institute du Canada. "We know they're acting on instinct, but the moment before a Canadian's tongue touches that frozen metal handrail, his brain goes numb, and then subsequently his tongue."
Source: http://www.thetoque.net/030729/tonguetied.htm
User Reviews
Submitted by jumpinjellyfish (user info) at 2005-04-27 13:02:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
There are so many better places for a guy to put his tongue!
Submitted by mrwolf (user info) at 2005-02-21 09:09:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Har har
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2005-02-21 08:57:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-01-29 10:33:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-01-28 13:21:14 (#)
Ranking: 2
Hell, all Canadian kids know the fastest and most practical way to free tongue from freezing metal is to piss on it.
Of course, that explains a lot...
==========================
AHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Fucking Canadians.
When I grow up I want to be a fucktard like you Jack!!!
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-01-29 00:14:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Cool post. Two things:
I live in Canada. I belive the area where I live is on approximately the same degree of lattitude that NYC is. Meaning, it's probably just as cold where I am than it is where you are. Buck up.
Second, no mortal can resist the pull a frozen flagpole has on your tongue. It's the voice, you see. The same voice that is ACHING to know what would happen if you stuck your fingers in a fan, or that tells you the best way to check the temperature of the barbecue is to slap your hand on the lid.
"Will my tongue really freeze to that metal pole?" Who can resist these questions?
Submitted by smoke_in_my_lungs (user info) at 2005-01-28 20:37:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I've only licked the inside of my freezer. My tongue got stuck, but it was almost erotic...
Man, I love living in Canada! More snow! MORE I SAY!
I'm up to my balls in the shit, and I couldn't be happier...
Submitted by BongZilla (user info) at 2005-01-28 20:25:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Who the fuck rides and Orange school bus? Am I the only one who is crepped out by this?
-BongZilla
+2 for stupidass Canadians.
Submitted by polyamorousaj (user info) at 2005-01-28 19:59:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-01-28 19:05:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
you'll put your eye out, kid...
Submitted by GodLovesALittleLovin (user info) at 2005-01-28 17:31:40 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehaw!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't know why I just did that, but it felt goooood.
Submitted by chipolatte (user info) at 2005-01-28 16:11:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
ahahahaha
Submitted by Adamdidit2u (user info) at 2005-01-28 15:44:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Loren1 (user info) at 2005-01-28 15:37:31 (#)
Ranking: 0
"without further ado"
God I hate that.
=============================
Ha ha you're a vindictive bitch.
Congratulations on that
Submitted by LaNa (user info) at 2005-01-28 15:07:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I triple dog dare you!
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2005-01-28 14:30:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I swear to gawd I'm not making this up.
I was in NYC last week on a drama trip (from Florida). One kid decided that it would be a good idea to lick the 'bare' breast of a metal statue of a mermaid that was in an outdoor display on the street. Predictably, his tounge froze to the breast. Chaperones were not amused. He ended up just ripping his tounge free, and left a decent chunk of it behind. As soon as people send me the pictures, I'm posting them. Some things were just meant to be shared.
Submitted by kai070169 (user info) at 2005-01-28 14:29:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
-2 because this is stupid. +2 because your mom is Buffy Sainte Marie.
Submitted by ess-arr (user info) at 2005-01-28 14:16:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
I see green that ain't Canada!!!
Submitted by Adamdidit2u (user info) at 2005-01-28 13:46:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I digress...
God I fucking hate that
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-01-28 13:26:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2005-01-28 13:03:08 (#)
Ranking: 2
Heh-heh.
Stupid hosers.
Hahahahahaahahaha
Submitted by firefly (user info) at 2005-01-28 13:25:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by the_lone_stranger (user info) at 2005-01-28 13:22:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Stuck?! Stuck?! STUUUUUUUCK!! WAAAAA STUUHUHUHUHUCK!
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-01-28 13:21:14 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Hell, all Canadian kids know the fastest and most practical way to free tongue from freezing metal is to piss on it.
Of course, that explains a lot...
Submitted by MickGinny (user info) at 2005-01-28 13:20:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I go fishing in canuda abot 3 hour's in from the new york boarder once or twice per year.;
from my obsirvation's: there fucked up in they're heads.
Submitted by Joemama (user info) at 2005-01-28 13:17:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
"Paramedics carrying de-iceing products"
Now thats funny.
Submitted by Caulaincourt (user info) at 2005-01-28 13:11:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
it looks pretty hot outside for freezing metal.
the grass is still green.
Submitted by Wazza (user info) at 2005-01-28 13:10:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr,
Submitted by mystiamoon (user info) at 2005-01-28 13:09:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
We only get about 12 days this cold here as well.
The thing I hate the most is the noises my home makes when the wood and metals used to build it are contracting and expanding in these extreme temperatures.
It fucking booms and creaks and sounds haunted all through the night. Then in the afternoon as the sun starts to beat down on it, it thaws out and and starts the totally different set of thawing noises.
I moved in here during the winter time 4 years ago and the first few really cold nights scared the shit out of me. I'm used to it now. I call it my 'below zero ghost'.
Submitted by comicbookguy (user info) at 2005-01-28 13:05:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Phinch (user info) at 2005-01-28 13:02:31 (#)
Ranking: 2
btw, the toque is the canadian onion. I hope you weren't taking the article for seriousness.
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2005-01-28 13:03:08 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Heh-heh.
Stupid hosers.
Submitted by Sassmasterr (user info) at 2005-01-28 13:03:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
dude, chicks are for fags
Submitted by Phinch (user info) at 2005-01-28 13:02:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
btw, the toque is the canadian onion. I hope you weren't taking the article for seriousness.
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-01-28 13:01:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
What dood tining. I dutht dot bat from liting the pole outthide
an I dot thtut. now ny tongue ith raw.
why di'int you tell me thith befo?
Submitted by Phinch (user info) at 2005-01-28 12:59:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
that picture is hilarious.
Submitted by Hadooken (user info) at 2005-01-28 12:57:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
ha ha sucka!
Submitted by knucklesnelson (user info) at 2005-01-28 12:55:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Loren1 (user info) at 2005-01-28 12:54:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Any excuse to make fun of Canadians...