School Closings and Delays

Wintertime is the time for school closings and delays. The weatherman predicted snow overnight. DOT crews were reported to be preparing, which makes me laugh because what they really mean is they pray (really hard) that it doesn’t snow. Where I live everything shuts down when it snows. Even the plows get confused and stay huddled inside. One snowflake and everything comes to a grinding halt.

We got our ‘school is delayed 2 hours’ phone call at 5:30 a.m. It boggles the mind to think they wake us up to let us know school’s delayed and we can sleep an extra two hours, but I never do fall back to sleep. I want to wrap my hands around the genius who invented this program.

Remember the olden days when we found out the distressing news by reading the crawl at the bottom of the television screen. As I read the list of closings I’d get more and more anxious as it got to my daughter’s school. I would cross my fingers and all body parts that could be crossed for good measure. I would make a pact with God if her school was open I would never again use the Lord’s name in vain. Her school popped up on the screen – CLOSED. ### Dammit! I renewed my pact.

One night my husband and I were watching TV when a ticker popped up; alerting us my daughter’s school was closed due to inclement weather. Infuriated, I ranted and raved about the lunatics who would close the schools because it snowed in Alaska. This was safety overkill. This was ### Dammit! My husband told me we were watching a show we recorded back in January, six months earlier. Our daughter was on summer vacation. Just the thought had me frazzled and renewing my pact.

Then there was the morning my daughter waited for the bus for two hours. After two hours she came inside and asked, “Are you sure there’s school today? I’ve been waiting two hours.” Turned out the show I was watching was another old, recorded show and instead of it being 75 and sunny, it was 12 degrees and snowing. School closed! # # # Dammit!

I renewed my pact with God and my daughter made her first one. I don’t know where she learned such language.