January 20

Two Christmases ago we introduced our kids to the movie A Christmas Story. They loved it. One of their favorite scenes was when Flick, Ralphie's buddy, stuck his tongue to a flagpole on a Triple Dog Dare and it stuck Of course that scene also brought along its share of questions - could that really happen, how do they get it off, does the fire department really have to come, etc etc. We explained that absolutely YES that could really happen and that you shouldn't try it.

Fast forward to yesterday. The temperatures here have been below freezing - below zero for that matter - for a few days. Everything outside is frozen solid. Bill took Caty and Alex down to the pond across the street to slide on the ice yesterday morning. Bill came back into the house to grab a bucket of water and left the two kids down by the pond. Not a big deal - the garage door was up so we could hear them and no one in their right mind was outside yesterday. The pond was frozen solid so there was no danger of the kids falling through. Anyway, he returns with the water to the pond and I guess to the sounds of Caty screaming. The pond is a water retention - there is a large concrete "pipe" that the water drains from the street into and goes into the pond. The front of the pipe has a metal grate over it to filter large pieces of debris. Caty, in all of her blondeness, decided to test the theory that your tongue will stick to metal if it is frozen. She learned the hard way that, in fact, it very much does. Thank goodness Bill had the water with him. I guess it was a bloody mess when he got there as she was trying to pull her tongue off the grate and had ripped some of it off. She managed to take a few chunks off before Bill got her freed with the water.


She's fine today. She says it doesn't hurt - only a little bit when she eats. She was completely embarrassed yesterday when it happened. I'm sure that experiement will never be tested again - at least by my kids.