Students at Stewart Middle Magnet School got a lesson in total weirdness this week after their campus was invaded one day by a toothy reptile and then the next by a crashing airplane.
What's next? BP oil in the school's sprinkler system?
"We're hoping that we have a great day today. We're hoping that maybe the president will come visit us," Principal Baretta Wilson told TBO.com. "Maybe that'll be the third thing."
On Monday, the Tampa school was host to a 7-foot alligator who wandered into the school and set up shop, appropriately, in front of the cafeteria. The gator was eventually expelled without anyone becoming his morning snack.
The next day, as students were probably still Facebooking and tweeting about the gator, a small plane turns a ball field at the school into a landing strip.
The single-engine Cessna 210 Centurian landed behind the school Tuesday night after pilot Erik P. Stasiowski experienced engine trouble after departing Tampa International Airport. There were no passengers aboard and the pilot wasn't injured.
The plane crashing the party may have also been appropriate because Stewart Middle is a NASA Explorer School where some students hope to be pilots, astronauts or engineers.
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"We sometimes say in our marketing video to come fly with us," Wilson said. "And I think maybe the pilot took that literally."
