Should have been a snow day

Yesterday was a snow day. It’s rare that we get enough snow to close the schools, but yesterday we did. What doesn’t make sense, though, is that we have even more snow today and the schools are open. This is what our road looked like at 8:00 this morning:

Note our neighbor’s car, which got stuck when he tried to turn it around. It’s been snowing on and off since Saturday and we haven’t seen any sign of a salt truck or a plow on our street.

So who decided that it was a good idea to open the schools and cause thousands of cars to be on roads like these? Obviously not a mom. Is one day of instruction really worth the effort it will take to get all those kids to and from school, or the potential for bodily injury, since Vancouverites are notoriously bad drivers in the snow?

Lucky for me, my husband usually drops Child One off at school on the mornings he has early band practice. I sent Child Two with them, figuring that it would be a blessing to everyone if this particular driver wasn’t on the road. And also lucky for me, my husband has new, super-duper snow tires—the very ones I scoffed at when he bought them a month ago, thinking they were overqualified (and overly expensive) for his little 10-year-old car. Those are his super-duper tire tracks in the picture. He and the kids made it safely to school, but just. They almost got stuck twice on the way.

If the plow doesn’t come through before long, I will have to walk to the school to pick them up. We live within walking distance of the school on an ideal day. When the weather’s nice, it’s a strenuous but pleasant 20- to 25-minute walk, down a little hill, up a very steep hill, then down a very steep hill, then up another very steep hill. But today it will be a slog through the snow—about a foot deep in some places. Too bad I don’t have any snowshoes. I wonder if I can build a makeshift sled and harness the cats up to it?

On the funny side, when my kids grow up they can honestly say to their grandchildren, “When I was your age, I had to trudge through the snow to school, uphill both ways.”

We didn’t have mail delivery yesterday and it’s looking like we won’t have it today either. It’s torture for Child Two, who is patiently but desperately waiting for two birthday presents that haven’t arrived yet. And for somebody as postally obsessed as me, the lack of mail is even worse than the mountain-climbing expedition it’s going to take to get to the school.