Mom Arrested for Filming Daughter Licking Tongue Depressor

What the hell is so hard about keeping your tongue to yourself?

First it was the Blue Bell licker and her copycat. Now a mom in Jacksonville, Florida (a state that doesn't need more bad press) is in trouble for not only filming her 11-year-old daughter licking a medical tongue depressor and putting it back into the jar at a dentist's office, but encouraging the young girl to do it.

The woman told WJXT-TV she was "wasn't thinking" and was "just being silly with [her] kid" after a long wait in an exam room. She posted the video to her private Snapchat account. A follower recorded the video and uploaded it to a Facebook group.

(Yeah, in case you didn't know, there are tons of screen recording apps, so those Snapchats don't always just magically vanish.)

WFOX-TV reports that the mom faces a charge of tampering with a consumer product without regard for possible death or bodily injury. She said she's received death threats and is worried about her daughter's safety, since the girl's face was (obviously) visible in the original video.

That's what really gets to me in this case. Yes, this licking trend is gross and dangerous, yet you're still going to post video of your child doing it knowing that other people who've pulled this stunt are getting death threats?

That poor kid. Mom really should have known better, and I sincerely hope her kid doesn't get bullied or harmed over this.

Meanwhile, the dentist's office had to be sterilized, which I'm sure wasn't cheap. I wonder if mom will be paying for that.

In case you've been away from the internet, this all started (as far as we know, anyway) with a San Antonio girl visiting her boyfriend in Lufkin, where she removed the lid from a carton of Blue Bell, licked the top of the exposed ice cream, then put it back in a Walmart freezer. She joked about starting a new trend called "Flu Bell" to intentionally get other people sick. Police eventually identified and tracked down the girl, whose identity wasn't released because she's a minor. She'll face juvenile charges of food tampering.

The first (known) copycat showed up in Louisiana late last week. 36-year-old Lenise Martin licked the top of an open Blue Bell container and put it back too. Martin took it a step further and poked his finger into the ice cream. He claims to have bought the container off-camera, but police still arrested him and charged him with tampering with property and unlawful posting of criminal activity for notoriety.

Let's start a new trend of not being gross. Yeah, I'm throwing out that challenge. Come at me.