“Enjoy the Smell!”: School Banned Mango Picking to Stop Food Fights—Then Rotting Fruit Caused Chaos
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People often make stupid rules when they don’t really think the situation through.
What would you do if your school was upset because some students were throwing things at the mango trees on the property, so they made a rule that nobody could touch the trees or the mangos, no matter what?
That is what the school in this story did, so the students complied and followed the rule perfectly, which meant all the mangos would drop to the ground and rot, causing a very smelly school. The teachers quickly realized their mistake and reversed the rule the following year.
This is a perfect example of following a rule to get it changed. Well done, kids. Read through the full story below and see if you think they handled it well.
Malicious compliance by all the students caused the whole school to reek!
This is an old story I had forgotten about until just now, ah the nostalgia.
Let’s see what happened when this person was a child.
It happened when I was in Middle School (about 2010), a bit of context: I live in an old rural town (not in the u.s). The only middle school in this town used to be a nursery, the kind where plants and trees are grown or sold, not a medical nursery.
Most of the trees weren’t cut down when the place became a school, and a few of them where fruit trees, 3 or 4 of them where mango trees.
Kids will be kids.
Us kids loved taking them home by the bunches to enjoy with our families or eating them during lunch and breaks. Occasionally some kids would try throwing rocks or sticks at the tree branches to make some mangos fall, one of the teacher’s didn’t like this.
Understandably, throwing rocks could be dangerous, but nobody was throwing them at each other and they were careful looking around for any people passing by as to not hurt anyone.
What a weird way to stop this bad behavior.
The most logical thing to do would have been to forbid students from throwing things at trees, but instead, the school passed a rule that any students caught picking up mangoes, wether they be on the floor or trying to get them from the trees would get in trouble or even face suspension.
We all thought it was a dumb idea, but me and a few other students could smell the eventual disaster from a mile away, so nobody protested and everyone at school agreed to comply (even the kids who were known to be rebellious).
I bet this was pretty disgusting.
Well…about a month or so later the whole school was absolutely stinking of rotten mangoes, and for those of you who don’t know, mango season usually peaks during early spring and late summer, plus in the state we’re in, rainy season hits in summer.
So, imagine old rotting mangoes in muddy water puddles that sit for days at a time…in the summer heat…Not a good combination of smells.
Surely, the teacher doesn’t want them to break the rules.
The teacher’s by that point told us that if we see a mango in good condition to be eaten we could pick them up.
But, We couldn’t possibly break the new rule that was imposed by our respectable teacher! We must obey like the good students we are!
I bet they were mad at that wasted money.
The school had to pay a clean up crew to dump all the rubbish and some of the parent’s (my mom included) complained about the wastefulness of perfectly edible fruit.
The next school year we were all enjoying delicious mangonadas (which is mango flavored ice pop with a spicy sweet sauce) under the lovely shade and those good ol’ summer breezes.
At least the teacher learned his lesson.
Said ice pop’s were made and sold by a classmates.
The teacher that had originally started the complaints was a loyal customer lol.
The best way to get a stupid rule changed is to follow it perfectly. These students illustrated just why the rule was so foolish.
Let’s take a look at what the people in the comments had to say about this story.
I’m sure the students forgave her.
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They really do sound wonderful.
This commenter loved the story.
If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about neighbors who intentionally tank an open house sale because they want to buy the property themselves.
Something similar happened to this commenter.
Talk about a happy ending.
A story with a very sweet ending. It is always good when the teacher realizes their mistake and changes the rules.
I can only imagine how good those fresh, ripe mangos tasted too.
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