America needs weekly school-closing snows

(720 words)

Any time I hear the morning meteorologist say outside there’s a blanket of snow atop a sheet of ice I instinctively feel like pulling the covers up and staying in bed the rest of the day..

It’s like the weatherman is phrasing the forecast to make getting up and getting dressed as unpleasant as possible.

The only thing today’s forecast is missing are reports of scattered slush pillows.

That’s what we here in Western Pennsylvania have today.

What we don’t have, at least in Latrobe, is a school delay.

Certainly, not a closing either. We haven’t had even one of those yet this year. That’s a pity.

I hope for selfish reasons we have one soon.

I urge you to follow my example and anytime the schools are closed for weather reasons you find a way to stay home, too.

It’s been years since I’ve had to lie to a boss — well, years since I’ve had to lie to a non-spousal boss — but I can’t imagine coming up with a kid-related lie would be too difficult.

Just say little Suzie has a cold or little Johnny caught the mumps. Or little Sidney!

The boss’ll let you slide, I’m sure.

And if you don’t have kids, you at least should try pretending you do.

For all the disruption they cause to your social life, your sex life, heck, your entire life, nothing beats saying you have a runny-nosed kid at home for getting out of anything you’d rather not do.

In fact, I’m surprised I didn’t think of that before the wife and I conceived actual kids. It would have saved us a whole lot of trouble.

But having kids, real or pretend, keeps you in touch with the vagaries of school closings and delays.

They rarely seem to make sense. Last week, Latrobe schools went through several delays because the temperature when the buses were scheduled to arrive was 2 degrees.

So instead of waiting for the buses at 8 a.m. when the temps were 2, the kids were told to be outside waiting for the buses at 10 a.m. when the temps were — wait for it — 4 degrees!

If you’re going to wait for actual warmth to start school then around here you’ll have to wait til the Fourth of July.

Today we’re surrounded by schools that have delays while our kids are all on-time.

We at our house have an annual wager to see who can predict the first school closing day. The girls optimistically picked weekdays in December. So they weren’t even close.

Me, I nearly nailed it by picking January 7. Val remains in the running with her January 16 selection and I’m letting the girls re-pick because it’s more fun to have a winner, even one that sort of cheats.

The stakes? If any of the girls win they get to select the meals and movies for the day.

If I win, I get obnoxious bragging rights and the opportunity to sit there and watch the movies they select and eat the meals they want.

I don’t care.

I’ve never gotten over my affection for the surprise school closing.

Automated phone notices and day-before internet reports have leveled some of the excitement.

Me, I wish they’d only allowed to break the news either on radio or the TV crawl.

That way there’s a real Powerball thrill to finding out schools are closed. It’s like watching the numbers being drawn while you’re clutching the winning ticket.

For those of us prone to sloth, it’s hard to beat seeing it run through the Gs — Geibel, Gloworms Academy, Glen Montessori — until Greater Latrobe!

If the kids didn’t have to make up the missed days in summer, I’d like to find skimpy reasons for closing the schools at least once a week and always every single Monday.

Imagine how much more pleasant the world would be if everyone everywhere were told to stay home on Mondays, watch Muppet movies and subsist on Pop Tarts and popcorn.

The only excuse for leaving the house would be if you were running low on marshmallows for the hot cocoa.

I see only one drawback in being able to relish so many glorious, soul-enriching snow days.

It’s gonna take an awful lot of snow.

Related . . . 

America needs a snow day (v. ’12)

Re-naming snow-bound Buffalo and other cities

Of mallbergs, fenderdung & other made-up winter words

Random thoughts on election results, snow days & favorite trial movies

Snow Day edition (v. ’10)

America needs a snow day

Usually by this point in the winter I’ll already have posted three or four I-hate-winter screeds.

The theme is shoveling snow sucks, all snowmen are abominable and that people who enjoy being outside in sub-freezing weather don’t have the good sense God gives a cow.

That’s why I was struck by an alien emotion this morning. I woke up sad it hadn’t snowed.

It started around dinner last night. The day had been pleasant and moderate, much as this whole winter. I’ve had to shovel just twice. As recounted in this winter-blasting howl, I shoveled at least twice a day for three weeks straight in the record snow-hell of February 2010.

Then one of the kids looked out the window and exalted, “It’s snowing!”

Was it ever. We’d gotten an inch in the hour since the sun had gone down. And it was snowing like we’d be buried by dawn.

That seemed to promise one thing: Snow day!

If there’s one thing I love about winter, it’s the school-sanctioned laziness of the snow day.

It’s probably not like that for most employed folks who consider it an inconvenient disruption of their busy, productive lives.

But they’re mostly Type A bullies who won’t let acts of nature deter them from endless money-making missions.

I’m not at all like that. It’s been my custom since I started working for myself -- er, more like NOT working for myself -- to stay home and watch cartoons whenever the school declares a snow day.

I must be something like a Type P person.

I’ve never forgotten the juvenile euphoria of huddling around the radio to hear Jack Bogut on KDKA announce -- yippee! -- no tests or teachers that day. It was like a surprise parole for the wrongly convicted.

I’m of the mind that when the wise men and women who run the schools decide it’s too dangerous to run the buses, it should mean every thing in the whole district closes until at least noon.

It should be like martial law. The only people permitted to drive are operating snow ploughs or are responsible for making pizza or ensuring the state liquor stores are open and stocked.

Then the roads could be declared safe around noon for desperate pilgrims in need of the aforementioned essentials.

My daughters were crushed this morning there was no snow day, especially the sad little kindergartner.

The poor kid’s never had a snow day.

This is the first year Greater Latrobe has had full-day kindergarten. We can argue about whether this will put our kindergartners on equal footing with kindergartners in totalitarian countries that impose things like year-round school.

I’m dubious of the benefits, but who am I to say?

Maybe one day I’ll rejoice that my daughter had twice as much kindergarten as her Daddy. That means twice as many cookies, twice as much nap time and twice as much time gazing around the room to see which kids eat their boogers and which ones just wipe them on the desk.

Yet, with all that elementary education, I understand it’ll fall to me to home-school her in one realm at which I’ve always excelled -- the art of the well-deployed hookie day.

So one day if the weather doesn’t cooperate, we’re going to be like the indoor ski resorts I hear about in places like Dubai. We’re going to have an artificial snow day.

We’ll pretend there’s two-feet of snow outside and get the fireplace cooking right along with the Poptarts. We’ll watch “The Three Stooges,” “Finding Nemo,” and seasons 1 through 4 of “3rd Rock From the Sun.”

We’ll simmer some soup, pop some Orville Redenbacher and stay snug in our jammies clear through the hot dog dinner.

We could all benefit from some Mother Nature imposed down time, a little stretch where the roads are impassable, the lines are down and there’s no one there to tell us to sit up straight or risk missing recess.

Please stay tuned to this blog for frequent weather updates and reminders that you’re working too hard.