Snow Forecast Day

Call me old school (heck, call me old, that’d be true, too), but I must say I’m a bit taken aback that Mimi’s school—and mine, too, although classes are on Winter break—has been cancelled today, not because of snow, but because it’s in the forecast.

Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m all for suspending institutional education in the name of safety, security, and faculty or staff exhaustion; I haven’t gotten cranky enough yet to be opposed, on principle, to snow days (but give me time, I’m sure I’ll be standing on my porch screaming for you kids to get offa my lawn any day now), but I do think it seems kind of wimpy to close down the old school house just because it’s supposed to start snowing later in the day.

Currently, the roads are all smooth and dry; sure, there’s a little bit of ice here and there, but it was actually worse yesterday and the day before when students reported as usual and while I suppose it would be a huge hassle and potentially dangerous to try to get everyone home safely should a blizzard kick in later today, the whole cancellation thing strikes me as something of an overreaction.

I think this is, at least in part, a function of the tyranny of the internetz, with its on-all-the-time/up-to-the-minute information on this or that, including the weather. Now, all these administrators can sit in their offices looking at radar weather and get all nervous about what’s on the horizon instead of just looking out the fawking window or opening the door and noticing that it doesn’t even feel like it’s below freezing, anyway!

Of course, what would be truly ironic is if the snow holds off until tonight and then dumps big so that tomorrow, school really needs to be closed. But at least then, there'll be enough snow for the kids to make snowmen, instead of just poking around in today’s slush.