Snow Day

It’s snowing. Living in temperate Virginia where every county has at least one random road that cannot be efficiently reached or cleared by snow removal equipment, that means the schools are closed. Yay?

When I was a kid, snow days were awesome. Freedom from school, all day outside playing in the snow, hot chocolate. Parents usually had the day off too: Mom made the hot chocolate and dried our snowsuits, Dad ran the snow blower and shoveled walkways.

Not too bad.

Now, I’ll grant you, I was a kid. I didn’t perceive if the parents were dying inside because they had to interrupt their lives to dry clothes and shovel snow. I’m sure the hated it on some level. But it was still a day off for them because their house wasn’t the office.

Wife and I work remote more often than not. There are no days off, just days when the kids are home and bored. Snow days are when the kids want to have a Saturday on an effing Tuesday. I get it, but I can’t support it. What happens is I try to set times for us to do stuff together, then the rest of the time we’re self-entertaining so I can do work. But instead of doing work, because I’m constantly interrupted, I end up writing a blog post because it is the highest possible output for the fewest amount of brain cells as I’m sure you’re fully appreciating by reading this stupidly long sentence.

So none of it really feels satisfying.

However, I will say that among the dull moments, the sibling battles, the BATTLE OF FIVE GUINEA PIGS (more on that later, I haven’t exactly documented that weird element of the household yet), and spouses trying to get work done, there are bright spots. Instead of a snowman, we built a Snow Lord. Six feet tall built of iced snow weighing several hundred pounds. Some kids come and try to knock him down? Frosty aint heard no bell.

Also, I bought some beer in hopes of reliving the fantasy of like … just hear me out. Day drinking on a snow day. That’s not a childhood memory. That’s college. And it was good.

I think I’ve ended my rant on a positive note. Fin.