My first snow day

My 2nd winter as a full time resident of central Oklahoma and yesterday was my first snow day.

Sure, it's snowed here before...couple inches here and there over the last two years, but this one was different in that it became an official "Snow Day."

My wife feels sorry for me that as a kid, I never experienced the excitement of watching the local news in the morning to see if your school was closed, and the joy of reading your school's name scroll up the screen.

She said the sounds of the depressed sighs of thousands of parents across the city could be heard as they faced an unplanned day of having the kids stuck inside the house, making messes and driving everyone crazy with their cabin fevered antics.

I always counter her feigned sympathy by citing the fact that she probably never experienced the eye-burning thrills and chest-wheezing excitement of going to recess during a 3rd Stage Smog Alert in LA in the 70's.

So there (cof-cof, wheeze-wheeze).

Anyhow, this particular storm that was looming on all of our intrepid weatherpersons radar was apparently so bad that schools were announcing their closure the night before the storm even hit. So last night, as Jay Leno sat on the couch with Al Gore (the movie star), the names of dozens of school districts across the state electronically scrolled the good/bad news across the screen.

Upon eyeshine this morning, my first peek out our bedroom window revealed no snow falling and just a dusting of the white stuff barely discernable along curbs and lawn lines.

On went the tv and the local news stations were already scrolling the names. One channel had their scroll line on top, the other on the bottom, one had the names in red with a blue background, yet another had white letters on black.

The entire scroll listing school closings due to weather, took over 25 minutes to get through the entire list.

Now that's a snow day.

Just got an email from my big brother back in sunny So Cal. He writes:"It's freezing here. Literally. This morning was about 37 degrees. Hope it's warmer where you are."My brother cracks me up.

Postscript - between 5 - 8 inches of the white stuff was dumped on our little abode today. The girls dug it. Literally.
Postpostscript - You know it's wintery out when your 7-year old yells at you from behind the closed door to the bathroom, "Daddy, the toilet seat is freezing!"