Put that shovel down

Around the middle of March, 2020, as the news of the pandemic became increasingly dire, we felt the world shifting around us. It was sort of like being in a car with failing brakes and a thoroughly inadequate sound system as we hurtled headlong through changes like we had never seen before.

Changes like mask mandates and distance learning and social distancing and everyone reeking of Purell and businesses going under and toilet paper shortages and so much sickness and death.

Some two and a half years later, those who died are not coming back, but we are dying at a much slower rate, thanks to common sense and vaccinations and rules instituted for the good of all, because some people just won't go along with medical recommendations. And yes, the pendulum has swung back to a certain degree, but there are things that are just never going to be the same. Some people will work from home, if not all of the time, a great deal of the time. Supply chain issues will continue, because the people who make cake mix and shirts and gimcracks saw how well it worked for the toilet paper people  - claim a shortage and jack the price way up high - and they want their share, too.

But there is one tradition in America that the pandemic may just about be ready to ruin forever, and I feel it necessary to explain this custom to friends who live in countries where the only snow they see is in a spray can or a snow globe toy. 

In the parts of the US where it snows enough that cars have a hard time getting around, the tradition has been to close school for those days. Children wake up early, turn on the tv or the tablet (they don't even know what a radio is anymore) and wait to hear the official announcement "Baltimore County Schools will be closed today due to inclement conditions." 

With the chance of snow in the air, the kids wore their pajamas inside-out the night before to increase the chance of snow. They might have put a spoon under the pillow for the same reason, they might have performed a ritual "Snow Dance," they might have put some ice cubes out on the porch or flushed ice down the toilet, and any number of localized folkloric steps to assuring schools will be closed. 

Once the word is out, everyone goes back to sleep for awhile and then eats four bowls of highly sugared cereal before going out to play in the snow, which activity parents hope will last until way past dark, at which time it's proper to come in and pray for "just one more day..."

But, as I say, this might be coming to a sad end. The Anne Arundel County Schools have checklisted a Virtual Day Instruction Plan for inclement weather, so that the schools down there can turn a nice snow day to a virtual instruction day.

Oh sure, they say that "the implementation of the plan in no way means that every inclement weather day will become a virtual instructional day." And that the decision will be made on a case-by-case basis.

But you know how these things go. They say they can do this scheme as many as eight days a year, so just put your pajamas on right, put that spoon back in the draw, and get that tablet out. 

Miss Cellaneous wants your attention. Building that snowman can wait until after you have mastered quadratic equations.