‘Bro tried to walk it off’: Harmless high school hall race ends in stunned silence when things reach a shattering climax

Horseplay and tomfoolery are both longtime staples of teenage boys and the lives they lead, and our education systems would do well to honor that in a way that’s conducive to the students’ emotional and social health, rather than meet each and every instance of it with orderly disdain.

Nevertheless, there’s a time and a place for everything, and the adrenaline of teenage hijinks isn’t a beast that’s easily contained by the dwindling logic of its wielder. Proof of this can be found in the latest plight of TikTok‘s @bennywrld3 and his friend, whose combined spontaneity ended in utter disaster.

Shared by the official ESPN TikTok page, Ben and his pal elected to have a footrace in the corridors of their high school, complete with sharp left-turns and a wall that doubles as a trophy cabinet, protected by nothing but a very flimsy piece of glass. The glass is so flimsy, in fact, that all one would need to absolutely decimate it is a forehead and willpower, and the latter isn’t even a must in the purest sense.

With this in mind, it’s no great task to figure out what happens next. Somehow, someway, Ben’s friend didn’t clock that if he kept running forward instead of turning, he would run directly into the trophy cabinet and cause far more damage than this footrace is worth. And cause damage he did, getting a face full of glass as the remains of the cabinet’s door falls to the ground, just waiting to be greeted by an indignant janitor.

Ben’s friend seems to be okay, given both boys’ reaction to the incident, but at least attempting to round that corner seemed pretty imperative to this race, so one has to wonder how this friend missed this particular memo. It’s entirely possible, of course, that the pair deliberately teamed up for this blunder in hopes of going viral, and frankly, they had the right idea if that was their goal. According to James Currier per NFX, voyeurism can be a major draw if you want people to engage with your content, and many are sure to find some schadenfreude in this particular instance of failure and subsequent dire straits.

The moral of the story, I suppose, is to never turn left if you want people to notice you, regardless of how inadvisable it is to forsake that left turn. You will, for instance, draw a lot of attention if you never turn left while driving, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get the attention that you want.