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Charlotte Safavi

Charlotte Safavi

Posted: February 14, 2010 07:18 PM

No More Snow Days

What's Your Reaction:

When the PTA president at my son's elementary school in Northern Virginia put out a memo last week requesting parents to help clear snow at school, I fell over myself--and heaps of discarded snow clothes--on my way running out the front door.

"Whoa. Where're you off to?" called my husband, strumming his guitar on the sofa strewn with newspapers, his sixth day at home since a spate of severe snowstorms shut down the Washington, DC area.

"To shovel sidewalks at school," I said, and then whispered conspiratorially, "we've got to get him back to school!" As if our son could hear, the cacophony of a car racing video game blasting out of the basement.

"Don't hurt yourself."

Today, I lie in bed on a heating pad, watching the morning news. To add to my pain, the forecasters are talking about another few inches of snow on Monday. NOOOOO. Call me the Grinch, but I am through with snow days.

Oh, it was sweet at first: hot chocolate, log fires, bouillabaisse--my family at home. Our son built snowmen and forts, had sleepovers and snowball fights, went sledding and skating. But you know it is time for no more snow days when:

1. You are out of milk, firewood and frozen fish.
2. The grocery store is out of milk, firewood and frozen fish.
3. Your son is bored of snow.
4. Your husband is building an igloo to pass the time.
5. Groundhog Day has nothing to do with spring.
6. Shared snow pictures on Facebook make you cringe.
7. The jumble of winter boots at the front door looks suspiciously like furniture.
8. The radiator is a Christmas tree, with smelly damp decorations.
9. You cancel the call to the plumber, when you realize your son and his pals walked in the backdoor and neglected to remove their outerwear.
10. Your skinny jeans feel like cold metal pipes.
11. Your skinny jeans feel a tad too tight.
12. You never want to wear layers again, no matter how fashionable.
13. Hell has frozen over--in the backyard.
14. You want to throw your husband and son's snow gear into the backyard.
15. Public parking lots are a public endangerment.
16. The driving public is a public endangerment.
17. Electric outages bring you to your knees.
18. Icicles are weapons of mass destruction.
19. You consider booking a Haitian cruise.
20. The School Superintendent asks to borrow a sled for his visiting granddaughter in an email Re: Facilities Updates.

 

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06:52 AM on 02/16/2010
Thanks Charlotte! I laughed when I read the request for a sled. "Everyone has a sled mom," one of my daughters said. I count my blessings that we do. You can add sleds and snow shovels to the things sold out at the store. Oh, and as for reading something new.... the library has been closed the entire time too!
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Charlotte Safavi
Oxford-educated, published writer with opinions.
06:58 AM on 02/16/2010
Thanks! So that's what the pile up was, everyone rushing out to buy a sled.
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Charlotte Safavi
Oxford-educated, published writer with opinions.
11:51 AM on 02/15/2010
I wanted to add to my list:
21. The Winter Olympics do nothing for me.
02:07 AM on 02/15/2010
And thus I moved to California from NY 15 years ago. I still find myself in dreams discovering that I'd moved back -- and can't remember when or how or why. Ok, call them nightmares.

Very funny post that rang very true. Good luck!
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Charlotte Safavi
Oxford-educated, published writer with opinions.
05:49 AM on 02/15/2010
Hi! Thanks for sharing. I lived in LA for 10 years, then ended up back East through marriage. Therein lies the rub.
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FearlessFreep
I'm actually a radical leftist
10:30 PM on 02/14/2010
Read Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" book THE LONG WINTER.
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Charlotte Safavi
Oxford-educated, published writer with opinions.
05:50 AM on 02/15/2010
Thanks for the tip. I've got nowhere to go!
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USAFree1
09:54 PM on 02/14/2010
Hahaha! I know how you feel. We buy in bulk for winter, and I'm starting to run low on food. I live on top of a mountain in northeast Tennessee (Appalachian Mountains), and we've had snow on the ground for two months. The local weatherman is saying snow after snow after snow until mid-April. I hope I don't kill my husband. When you have to walk down a 1/4 mile 45 degree angle drive to get to your car, go somewhere, then have to carry your purchases on a sled or backpack back up the drive all for two months, you're in deep doo doo. We have a garden tractor with a snow blade, and it didn't help much the last snow. The tractor got stuck twice coming back up the drive. Where is that real estate person; I'm going to bash him with a baseball bat: "It only snows a couple of times a year, and it's gone in three days." Hell, I'm 60 and my husband a couple of years older. We're getting into great shape if we don't drop dead first.

And, we have a winter weather warning for the next three days. HELP!
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Charlotte Safavi
Oxford-educated, published writer with opinions.
05:51 AM on 02/15/2010
Thanks for sharing. I take my wool pom-pom hat off to you.