Snow Day

The forecast here is calling for snow yet again. It looks like winter will be putting up quite a fight until she is dragged off kicking and screaming by my good friend, April.

But then again, it means that there is still a chance for a snow day!

Ah, snow days!

Do you remember the days before robocalls and web sites? Back when you sat in bed with your ear pressed up against the radio… waiting… waiting… until… WAHOOOOooooooo!

The next thing you knew, you were jumping on the bed! Making snow angels! Sledding until your feet were so cold, you were certain that your mom would find your toes in the laundry.

And for me, what made it all the sweeter was the knowledge that my teachers were absolutely, positively, miserable about the whole thing. I could picture them in their school basement apartments cursing the sky before they went back to thumbing through student files, muttering about sentence diagrams, and dreaming up twenty-page lists of obscure dates in history.

“Take that, Teachers! The snow gods have smiled on the lowly pupil today – Hallelujah!” I would shout and make another snow angel for good measure.

Ten years after graduating from high school, snow days were a distant memory. Then one November I spent a week visiting my sister, who was a newly minted teacher in Colorado.

Well, very early one morning the phone rang. And the next thing I knew, a “WAHOOOOoooooo!” was being shouted from the bedroom. Apparently, there had been a big storm overnight, and it would be a snow day!

Well, we jumped on the bed. Of course we did! We made snow angels! We went sledding! I felt like I was eight years old again. Then halfway through my third cup of cocoa, it hit me. I had spent a snow day… with a teacher!

Could I have been wrong all along? Was it possible that old Mrs. Coy jumped on her bed those snowing January mornings? Could Mr. Engle have made snow angels? Did Mr. Saucer spend all afternoon on his toboggan?

To think – if these questions had the slightest potential to be answered in the affirmative, then it was even possible that those teachers actually lived in homes of their own…

My world would never be the same.

PROMPT: Have you ever had a snow day? How did it feel? What did you do? Write, paint, or sculpt about it. Did you hold any particular (or peculiar) beliefs about the teachers in your life? Okay, maybe I’m the only one. But you can also check out the picture book, Teacher from the Black Lagoon, by author Mike Thaler and illustrator Jared Lee for some fun inspiration. WAHOOOOoooooo!