Snow Day 2014!

Something strange happened on Friday, something almost unheard of in the Boise School District. We got a snow day.

The trick to getting a snow day is the timing. The snow has to dump at exactly the right time late at night or early in the morning, at exactly the time when snowplows are incapable of clearing the roads for the a.m. bus routes. Or it has to be the kind of storm that takes everyone by surprise, the meteorologists, the school officials, the deicer drivers. It must have been the perfect storm on Friday.

On Thursday, I was expecting it to snow more throughout the day. But it didn't snow much at all. I brought home some work, just in case, but I was less than optimistic.

At a meeting that afternoon, one of my colleagues told the rest of the staff, "Do you want to know how to get a snow day tomorrow? Wear your pajamas backwards and flush ice cubes down your toilet. That's what they are doing in New York."

Everyone laughed like it was an inside joke, but I didn't get it at all. Was there supposed to be a logical punchline? Was it one of those sexual references I (sometimes) don't understand?

I laughed anyway.

Then I looked it up online when I got home.

It turns out, lots of snow day superstitions are floating around out there:

• Put a silver spoon under your pillow.
• Turn clockwise twice, then turn counterclockwise twice while wearing pajamas.
• Say "Boom, boom for snow!"
• Put a potato by your alarm clock. 
• Light a green candle.
• Wear your pajamas backwards, and put an ice cube down the toilet for each person living in your house.

I was just relieved that I hadn't missed yet another sexual reference.

Thursday night, I went to bed, certain there was no snow day on the horizon no matter how many spoons I put under my pillow. It hadn't snowed at all for the last several hours. I woke up at 5:30 a.m. and started my morning routine. I was standing naked, just out of the shower, when Dan knocked on the door.

"Snow day!"

"What?" I threw open the door (not in my backwards pajamas, by the way). "Did I get a phone call?"

"No. It's on the news."

"But the school didn't call? Are you sure it's not a hoax?"

Dan pulled out his smartphone.

"It's on the Boise Schools website," and he showed me the message posted in bright red letters.

"What the --" and you can probably guess the rest. I started jumping around (yes, still naked).

Whatever happened in the heavens between the hours of 9:30 p.m. and 5:30 a.m., one thing is for sure . . .

The whole school staff must have worn their pajamas backwards Thursday night.

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