Amuse Me--Pretty Please?

I promised you a contest, and it's at the end of this post, but you have to wade through all the craziness first.  It's truly a wandering, yet cohesive, work of art at which I have labored lo, these many minutes. 

I believe I've mentioned once or twice that it's a bit of a weather crisis around here.  Actually, it's more of an electricity crisis.  The weather is fine.  The streets are dry as a bone and the temp is well above freezing.  But because a huge number of people (and many school buildings) in my city don't have power, all the schools have been closed all week.  All the precarious limbs dangling from my trees make it impossible for the kids to play outside.

So it's like a snow day, without the snow.  It's a little Twilight Zone-ish, actually.  The weirdness of it has, evidently, caused all of my kids' adrenaline pistons to fire off at full blast, because (please help me) they are running absolutely wild.

On top of this (and here we begin the wandering, so stay with me), I changed my facial cleanser this week, and I have had a terrible allergic reaction to it.  My face itches, the kind of itchiness that messes with your brain and makes you want to pull off your skin.  To make matters worse, as awful as it feels, it looks completely normal.  No pinkness, nary a flake of skin.  So I'm walking around scratchin' like a fat dog at a chigger farm, and my family just looks at me like I'm crazy.  All the pain, none of the sympathy.

Poor, poor little me.  As you can tell, I'm just overflowing with peace on earth, goodwill toward men.

In hopes of injecting a little lightheartedness to this wildly loud (and itchy) day, I'm holding a contest: write your best haiku about snow days in the comment section below.  Make it funny (i.e., wild antics of kids?), make it thought-provoking (i.e., breathtaking beauty of snow?)--whatever your little heart desires.

(Surely you remember the haiku from fourth-grade English?  Three lines of five/seven/five syllables.  Way more info than you could possibly need is here.)

I've written a couple of examples:

Way too much TV.
Dora, Dora, Dora the
Explorer kills me.

- OR - (this one's for the cerebral among you, of which I am not one):

Gentle crystals of
Flaking ice tells the flowers
To ready their buds.

I'll narrow them down and post the finalists tonight--you all will get to vote on the final selection.

Here's the fun part:  the PRIZE!

The winner will receive a FREE Insignia Compact Shelf System ($127.99 retail value), offered exclusively at Best Buy.  This streamlined little number features an iPod dock, MP3 interface, CD/DVD player and HD radio.  A very nice Christmas gift for the music-lover on your list!

Leave your brilliantly hilarious/beautiful/inspiring haiku in the comments section (no pressure!).  I'll keep the comments open until 5 pm CST today (Friday), and I'll post the finalists by 8 pm CST tonight.  You can vote all weekend, and I'll announce the winner Monday morning. You do not have to be a blogger to win, but you do have to provide a valid e-mail address in the appropriate spot when you submit your comment.

Go for it, girls--entertain me, while I sit here and scratch.