Story Archive

If the Joke Is Cold, Repeat It

A parent accompanying students on a school trip offered an eighth-grader chocolate-covered almonds. That’s what the things in the bag were alleged to be, anyway, but when the boy put one in his mouth, someone told him the truth: They were moose droppings. The crowd laughed and the boy fled to clean his mouth, his mother, Karen Eyolfson, said. Then the same offer was made to a girl who hadn’t been present the first time; she got the brown stuff in her braces, Eyolfson said. Her son couldn’t even ask his teacher, the counselor, or the principal of the Walter Whyte School in Grand Marais, Man., Canada, for help — they were all watching, and in on the prank, Eyolfson said. The local superintendent said the staff members responsible have been “disciplined,” but he wouldn’t say how, and Eyolfson, who asked that the principal be transferred, has been disappointed. (AC/CBC) ...Which makes the superintendent, like the staff he’s protecting, look a lot like a chocolate-covered almond.