The cult of pumpkin spice is so strong that it brought down an entire school in the US
The cult of pumpkin spice has officially gone too far. So far in fact, that its pungent odour brought about the evacuation of an entire high school in Baltimore, Maryland.
Students and teachers at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Upper Fells Point, Baltimore, were concerned about an "unusual smell" on the third floor at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday. It was getting stronger. And, per the school's president Bill Heiser, several students and teachers were having trouble breathing.
The principal took the decision to evacuate over 200 students and teachers from the building and call the emergency services. When the fire brigade showed up, they called for a Hazmat team. Things were pretty serious.
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The Baltimore Sun reports that several tests were carried out for hazardous materials, all of which came back negative. Phew.
"After extensive testing, the BCFD [Baltimore City Fire Department] determined that the building was safe," reads an official statement on the school's website.
Still, two students and three grownups were taken to hospital for "ailing stomachs," so something was definitely awry.
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The suspicious aroma that brought about this disruption and distress? A pumpkin spice air freshener.
If ever proof were needed that pumpkin spice needs to be destroyed, this is it.
Make it stop.
Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.
