AuntShecky
12-12-2008, 05:59 PM
Season’s Sleetings
Last night the great Northeast experienced an ice storm. When many parents woke up this morning, they experienced their one of their worst nightmares. That’s right – all the schools were closed.
Most of them did the first thing every one should do in an emergency: turn on the tv. As usual, the TV was broadcasting a morning news program in which a coterie of network special correspondents were discussing the latest political and/or celebrity scandal, and as usual, the parents ignored it. Instead they directed their eyes to the bottom of the screen where there is a alphabetical loop listing the school closings in the region. If the scroll happened to be listing the pre-schools, elementary, middle, junior-and-senior high schools in the district named “Aardvark,” pity the poor Mama whose kids attend Zuyder Zee Consolidated School District.
Because she had no idea how many schools had been closed – were there five or five hundred?– she didn’t know how long the scroll would run before starting over
from the top. She was dying to duck into the kitchen for a cup of coffee, but she was terrified that if she glanced away for just a nanosecond, she’d miss the all-important
listing – not that the other schools aren’t important, but let’s face it, she didn’t really give a rat’s tuchis about Happy Rainbows Day Care Center or the New Attitude
School of Beauty.
Meanwhile the list of closings was leisurely sauntering by like a yuppie at a Sidewalk Sale at the Mall. Right after Rockland Springs came the Litany of Saints commencing with St. Ambrose. By the time the scroll reached the Philips – St. Philip the Elder, St. Philip the Younger, St. Philip the Neglected Middle Child – the mom found herself in the beginning stages of caffeine withdrawal, though her bladder was approaching the burst alert stage.
The scroll, alas, had reached Zebulon Pike Country Day School and then returned to the Aardvark line-up. No Zuyder Zee! Was it open, closed, or what? Maybe Z.Z.’s top, the Principal, is a late riser. Maybe he was telephoning the TV station right now!
At last the kids got up and in front of the tube to relieve their mother. They always look forward to a “snow day” the way show biz junkies can’t wait for the Golden Globes. Since they hate going to school so much, they not only read the scroll but actually cheered it on. It was if they were watching the races from Aqueduct with a bet riding on a rallying longshot. As the scroll was coming to the end of the list of schools starting with “w,” and started on the three schools with the initial “y,” the reluctant scholars pumped their fists and shouted, “Come on!” “Come on!” Finally, like Punxsatawney Phil tentatively poking his head out of his den on February Second, “Zuyder Zee CSD” appeared on the scroll.
The triumphant “Yesss” immediately changed to a chagrined “Agh.” The mother was aghast at how quickly her children’s facial expressions morphed from elation to confusion to bleak despair in fewer than ten seconds. Not even Mary Hart of Entertainment Tonight
can do emotional segues that swiftly. For Zuyder Zee was not closed. It was not exactly open, either. The kids were thrust into the academic equivalent of Limbo known as the “two-hour delay.”
Because nearly 100 minutes had evaporated since beginning the vigil in front of the tube, the process of getting the kids fed, deloused, dressed and out the door was more intense than a “normal” school day.
And when the mother eventually arrived at work, she hoped that the boss wouldn’t make any snide remarks about the “Mommy track.” Just as she removed her gloves, hat, boots, and two or three of the six layers of standard winter wear and sat down at her desk, the phone rang. A representative of Zuyder Zee was calling with the news that every parent dreads, the two words that make a regular “snow day” seem like a week in Cancun: “Early dismissal.”
Last night the great Northeast experienced an ice storm. When many parents woke up this morning, they experienced their one of their worst nightmares. That’s right – all the schools were closed.
Most of them did the first thing every one should do in an emergency: turn on the tv. As usual, the TV was broadcasting a morning news program in which a coterie of network special correspondents were discussing the latest political and/or celebrity scandal, and as usual, the parents ignored it. Instead they directed their eyes to the bottom of the screen where there is a alphabetical loop listing the school closings in the region. If the scroll happened to be listing the pre-schools, elementary, middle, junior-and-senior high schools in the district named “Aardvark,” pity the poor Mama whose kids attend Zuyder Zee Consolidated School District.
Because she had no idea how many schools had been closed – were there five or five hundred?– she didn’t know how long the scroll would run before starting over
from the top. She was dying to duck into the kitchen for a cup of coffee, but she was terrified that if she glanced away for just a nanosecond, she’d miss the all-important
listing – not that the other schools aren’t important, but let’s face it, she didn’t really give a rat’s tuchis about Happy Rainbows Day Care Center or the New Attitude
School of Beauty.
Meanwhile the list of closings was leisurely sauntering by like a yuppie at a Sidewalk Sale at the Mall. Right after Rockland Springs came the Litany of Saints commencing with St. Ambrose. By the time the scroll reached the Philips – St. Philip the Elder, St. Philip the Younger, St. Philip the Neglected Middle Child – the mom found herself in the beginning stages of caffeine withdrawal, though her bladder was approaching the burst alert stage.
The scroll, alas, had reached Zebulon Pike Country Day School and then returned to the Aardvark line-up. No Zuyder Zee! Was it open, closed, or what? Maybe Z.Z.’s top, the Principal, is a late riser. Maybe he was telephoning the TV station right now!
At last the kids got up and in front of the tube to relieve their mother. They always look forward to a “snow day” the way show biz junkies can’t wait for the Golden Globes. Since they hate going to school so much, they not only read the scroll but actually cheered it on. It was if they were watching the races from Aqueduct with a bet riding on a rallying longshot. As the scroll was coming to the end of the list of schools starting with “w,” and started on the three schools with the initial “y,” the reluctant scholars pumped their fists and shouted, “Come on!” “Come on!” Finally, like Punxsatawney Phil tentatively poking his head out of his den on February Second, “Zuyder Zee CSD” appeared on the scroll.
The triumphant “Yesss” immediately changed to a chagrined “Agh.” The mother was aghast at how quickly her children’s facial expressions morphed from elation to confusion to bleak despair in fewer than ten seconds. Not even Mary Hart of Entertainment Tonight
can do emotional segues that swiftly. For Zuyder Zee was not closed. It was not exactly open, either. The kids were thrust into the academic equivalent of Limbo known as the “two-hour delay.”
Because nearly 100 minutes had evaporated since beginning the vigil in front of the tube, the process of getting the kids fed, deloused, dressed and out the door was more intense than a “normal” school day.
And when the mother eventually arrived at work, she hoped that the boss wouldn’t make any snide remarks about the “Mommy track.” Just as she removed her gloves, hat, boots, and two or three of the six layers of standard winter wear and sat down at her desk, the phone rang. A representative of Zuyder Zee was calling with the news that every parent dreads, the two words that make a regular “snow day” seem like a week in Cancun: “Early dismissal.”