There's a good chance of snow tomorrow. Or, more accurately, there's a chance of ice, because that's what we get in Oklahoma. It's never the nice, fluffy, build-a-snowman stuff, but the hard, dangerous, destroy-the-powerlines stuff. We are waiting patiently to see what rolls in overnight.
Well, I'm waiting patiently. My sons are not. They are hard at work, doing everything in their power to make sure we are snowed out of school tomorrow. And if you think that there's not much you can do to bring on a snow day, then you clearly haven't spent much time in the 5th, 4th and 2nd grades. It turns out there are entire systems in place. According to the widely accepted elementary-school lore, if you sleep with your pajamas on inside out AND with underwear on your head AND with socks on your hands, then it will snow enough to cancel school. For good measure, according to my sons, you should also turn off all the lights in the house and march around your living room chanting "ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-SNOW...ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-SNOW!"
In further preparation, I went to Wal Mart tonight, along with every other resident of the state of Oklahoma (it's how we cope with emergencies in the South: we go to Wal Mart. Storm coming? Go to Wal Mart. Banking industry in decline? Go to Wal Mart. Global thermonuclear war? Go to Wal Mart. NEVER UNDERESTIMATE the ability of a greeter with yellow smiley-face stickers to cheer a girl up in the face of global thermonuclear war).
Wal Mart was well-stocked on everything, with huge displays of appropriate snow-related items, including frozen pizza and sidewalk salt. In fact, Hubs would tell me later (because my man is a fount of bizarre trivia), Wal Mart has meteorologists whose sole job it is to track coming storms and stock stores accordingly. It makes me feel just a tiny bit manipulated, but it's also reassuring. Because I know that if a natural disaster strikes, I may not be able to count on my federal government, but oh-yes-ma'am I will have strawberry Pop Tarts.
(Strangely enough, though, there was only one item completely and totally sold out tonight: Bananas. Doesn't that seem strange? There wasn't a banana in the whole store. I could understand a run on bread or peanut butter or canned tuna. OR, even more sensibly, brownie mix. But bananas? I can't say that, in a time of crisis, I have ever craved a banana. Although now that I know I can't have one, I suddenly want one.)
Anyway, we're off to bed tonight, hoping for a day of school-canceling-but-not-power-outage-inducing snow tomorrow. Maybe we can curl up on the couch in our inside-out pajamas for a movie marathon, including hot chocolate and popcorn. (And I give it 15 minutes before someone asks for a banana.)
