The Snow Day

I had a snow day at work yesterday, the result of a massive storm that moved up from the south (I think) and landed on my small New Hampshire town sometime in the wee hours of the morning, leaving only after dropping close to a foot and a half in twelve hours.*

*My wife, lovely woman that she is, looked at me around lunch time and said, “We should order take out and have it delivered.”

The threat of this storm, and the possibility of a free day off, caused me to consider a question that had surprisingly never occurred to me before: which day is the best for a snow day?

There is, of course, no such thing as a “bad” snow day. So bear in mind that the fifth-best day on this list is still better than one that includes work or school. Unless you really love work or school. That’s okay too.

One thing I’m choosing to ignore here is the Fake-Out Snow Day, which is when you hear reports of a big storm coming, stay up late the night before to see if there’s an announcement, but wake up in the morning and realize that barely a flake has fallen and your dream of a snow day is gone. The Fake-Out Snow Day is the most evil, vile trick that Mother Nature can play on us. We shall never speak of it again.

Anyway, here are the five days of the traditional work/school week, in order of best to worst timing for snow days:

1. Monday
You’ve just had your weekend. Now it’s time to get back into the grind…except you wake up Monday morning, the ground is covered, the plows are out, and work/school is canceled! Woo hoo, free long weekend, made that much sweeter by the fact that you didn’t even see it coming.

2. Friday
For much the same reason as Monday, in that you get an extra day on the weekend. The only difference is that this way, you know going into the weekend that it’s gonna be a long one. Some might argue that the Friday snow day is the best because it cuts the week off prematurely – Thursday becomes Friday, but only after the fact, which is always amazing when you consider how hard Fridays can be to deal with. You’re welcome to think that, and I certainly won’t argue with you. The Monday/Friday debate is a matter of personal preference. In the end, there is no right or wrong answer.

3. Wednesday
Under ordinary circumstances, Wednesday might be the worst day ever. At the beginning, you’ve made it through two days; at the end, you still have two days to go. Gah, so depressing. But when you have a midweek snow day, suddenly Wednesday feels like Sunday, which means Thursday feels like Monday, which makes Friday feel like the fastest-arriving Friday ever. I mean, tomorrow’s Friday, and thanks to my snow day, it feels like I’ve only worked one day this week. It’s amazing. The awesomeness of splitting the work week into two equal parts cannot be overstated. I’m 93.4% certain that if my boss offered me ten hours a day on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, with Wednesdays off, I would take it without a second thought.

4. Thursday
There’s nothing wrong with a Thursday snow day – it’s still a day away from the daily schedule – but it’s not quite as good as the others. You’ve already gone through three days of work, so you’re a little more tired than on a Wednesday. It’s only Thursday, so you don’t get the excitement of a three-day weekend. It does, however, give you a chance at something special, especially if you’re still in school: if you can convince your parents that you don’t need to go to school on the Friday as well, you can work your way into a four-day weekend.* And THAT is a beautiful thing indeed.

*My mother was actually good for this whenever we were sick. I can’t even tell you how many times we would come down with something early in the week, feel better by Thursday afternoon, and my mother would be like, “I’m not gonna send you to school for one day this week.” It’s funny, you’d think with a mindset like that, I’d miss a lot of work with various ailments, yet I haven’t called in sick in nearly three years. Isn’t it ironic?

5. Tuesday
Well, some day had to bring up the rear here, and sadly, it’s Tuesday. A Tuesday snow day is a good snow day, simple because it is a snow day. But again, it’s not a long weekend, and it falls behind Thursday because of the three long days that follow. Like Monday/Friday, it’s probably a matter of preference. Some people probably like to get Monday out of the way, then get a free day off, then deal with the three days in a row. That feels too much like a tease to me. Also, you lose the opportunity for the four-day weekend, which is the true value in a Thursday snow day.

The idea of snow itself, not just a snow day, also got me thinking about something else (I think I might have seen a similar question somewhere recently, but I can’t remember where): how is it that we’re in the year 2011, able to do all sorts of amazing stuff like communicate via small handheld devices, send people into outer space, and build telescopes that can tell us about storms on freakin’ Saturn – real Star Trek-level stuff – but we haven’t figured out a better way to deal with snow?

It falls out of the sky and immediately shuts down our infrastructure, whether we’ve been warned of its imminent arrival or not. Governors warn people to stay off the roads. Big trucks are immediately dispatched to push it around, which gets it out of our way in one sense, but also creates these big ol’ mountains that those of us who drive Saturn Ions can’t see around without easing gently into the road. Salt and sand are thrown on the ground. This is the 21st century, and we can’t do better than salt and sand?

I don’t have any answers, of course. That would be too easy. I’m just wondering why a scientist somewhere – could be a dude from NASA, could be that weird sixteen-year-old kid from down the street who’s always doing some sort of experiments in his basement, could be my tenth grade chemistry teacher – hasn’t figured out something that works better, like roads that don’t become slippery, or tires that can gain traction on the slickest surfaces (from the way I see some people driving, I think they think at least one of these already exists). I mean, come on, people, let’s do this. I really wanted a sub yesterday.