The Doughnut Dash

Every once in a while, Gothamist comes across a news story that brings back fond memories. There was one pathological criminal kid in our rural upstate high school. One year we had the bad luck of being assigned a hall locker to which the criminal kid knew the lock combination. He would steal the cookies Gothamist and our lockermate would bring in with our lunches. Only the cookies --the nutritious parts of the lunch were always left untouched. Let's just say that our locker was left alone for the rest of the school year after we left a *special* batch of cookies in our locker.

Enough with the nostalgia. Five middle school students on Long Island have been charged with tampering with a consumer product after sharing doughnuts stuffed with Ex-Lax on Friday. Nineteen students and a health teacher were victims of the prank. The health teacher, who was given a doughnut by a non-prankster, became suspicious after biting into the doughnut. No victim was seriously ill, but thirteen students were sent home because of "abdominal pain and digestive problems". The prank was played indiscriminately, even friends. One friend who was given a doughnut because it was her birthday said "I won't be talking to them for a long time." Why couldn't they just run head first into a fence like other kids on Long Island?

In addition to the misdemeanor criminal charges, the pranksters are facing yet-to-be-determined disciplinary action by the Sequoya Middle School in Holtsville. The students were said to be inspired by a recent episode of "High School Stories: Scandals, Pranks and Controversies" which airs on MTV2. MTV claimed that the show is intended to prevent cranks, not promote them.