I was born in the north and raised in the south. The southeast corner of the United States where there are communities of retired people who moved here to escape the harsh winters of the north. I’ve never experienced a northern winter. But I have experienced the thrill of a snow day. Where just the mention of snow, even if just flurries, shuts down my entire state. In fact, schools are delayed tomorrow simply because it’s going to be so cold. I get it, kids have to stand outside at the bus stop.
My little section of the state is supposed to get an inch or two of snow tomorrow night. Snow has been rare the past two or three years. Usually we get a little bit each year. And by a little bit, I mean one day of flurries, or even a few inches if we’re lucky. But global warming has made winter weather events almost obsolete. We are much more likely to have hurricane days in August and September.
As a former educator, snow days made me as excited as it did the kids, maybe even more so. In my current job, I have begun to dread unexpected school closures. We have to notify the students one by one that their class is cancelled. My department doesn’t have a fancy robocall system. We have a phone in our office and Google Voice on our cell phones which allows us to get the message out faster via text. But then, after the school reopens, we have to go through the tedious process of rescheduling the missed classes. People have to get the number of hours of class that they paid for.
With this winter storm threat looming, I was dreading it. Rumors about it started flying last week. I hoped so much that the storm would stay to our coast and away from my city so that school wouldn’t be closed and I wouldn’t have to do all the things that come with a school closure. But after this three day weekend where my husband and I spent a great deal of time catching up on laundry and doing other random kind of around-the-house things, I have changed my mind. I want a snow day! The weather forecast has shifted the storm a little bit more in our direction so I’m hoping that the predicted 1-2 inches for my city will close my school on Wednesday. Let me have a day of sitting on the couch snuggled under a fuzzy blanket with the book I’m reading. Later I’ll put the book down and pull out my latest knitting project and a movie. Or maybe I’ll binge more of “The Office”. Let me just relax and be lazy. Please! I’d also like to see the snow. It really has been about three years since I’ve seen any. I’d love to see how my dogs react to it. It would be a great day!
For anybody from the north reading this and scoffing at the fact that 1-2 inches of snow is cause for shutting down schools and businesses when it wouldn’t cause any kind of disruption up north…I leave you this meme. I giggle every time I see it because it is 100% accurate.
Leave a Reply