On the Milk Crate Challenge, let freedom ring

If you are into silver linings, you can tell yourself that at least the Milk Crate Challenge isn't quite as stupid as the Tide Pod Challenge. But it's real close. The idea is to build a staircase out of plastic milk crates in the shape of a one-dimensional pyramid which, at its tallest, is six or more crates high. The challenge is to walk up one side and then down the other. What makes this tricky is that, at three crates high, the stack begins to wobble, and each additional tier becomes exponentially more precarious. By the top tier, the stack becomes less stable than Rudy Giuliani, and the participant more often than not comes crashing down in a pile of rigid, bone-shattering plastic. That's the basic challenge, but as you can imagine, it has taken on various iterations just to make it even more difficult, and more stupid, than it originally was. The result, as all things are these days, is video-recorded so we are all treated to the catastrophic results. So it's kind of like watching a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, except with real people. The Washington Post reports, "When the person falls — and they usually do — throngs of people who've helped make the social media spectacle known as the Milk Crate Challenge the latest viral phenomenon proceeds to sing a chorus of 'Oh!' and 'Ah!' as the pyramid collapses and the climber lands painfully on a milk crate or the ground." When considering the future of the human race, I comfort myself by figuring that past cultures probably did ridiculous and pointless things too, we just don't know it because they didn't have TikTok. If the cavemen had iPhones, we would probably today have archeological footage of them leaping into great piles of mastodon dung, or taking the Stone Tool Challenge in which they bonked each other over the cranium with hunks of limestone as bystanders doubled over in laughter. But one group of people that is not amused by the Milk Crate Challenge are those spoilsports in the medical community, who warn the practice can be "life-threatening." I suppose. But depending on your view of Darwin, the MCC is either exceedingly life-threatening or not life-threatening enough. "So many of these injuries we're seeing are preventable just by being intelligent," said Henry Schuitema, chief of emergency medicine at Jefferson Health in New Jersey. "If you catch a corner of one of those crates, it's going to be problematic. It looks like something funny, but real people are getting real injuries." That has to be the phrase of the century: So many of these injuries are preventable just by being intelligent. Or, as Ned Flanders said to Homer Simpson, "How do you do it, Homer, how do you turn off that little voice in your head that says 'think'?" The doctor was further irritated that the injury-causing Milk Crate Challenge comes at a time when so many hospitals are swamped with COVID patients. "Everyone needs to do their part in supporting first responders and health-care providers, and that involves not partaking in challenges like this one that is putting additional strain on the system," said Shawn Anthony, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. OK, but — how is not getting a vaccine any different than walking over a stack of wobbly milk crates? I mean, these kids are just exercising their "freedom," right? And who knows if these medical professionals are being truthful when they tell you that you can fall and break your tuchus? From what I see on the internet, plenty of people who take part in the Milk Crate Challenge are just fine. So until the FDA comes out with proof that gravity really exists, let's just ignore all the people with advanced medical degrees. Wouldn't want to stop COVID by just being intelligent. — Tim Rowland is a columnist for Herald-Mail, a columnist and staff writer for Sun Community News, and a New York Times bestselling author. His books include "High Peaks; A History of Hiking the Adirondacks from Noah to Neoprene" and "Strange and Unusual Stories of New York City".

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On the Milk Crate Challenge, let freedom ring

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