Last week's first significant snowfall of the season reminded me that the world separates into two groups of people when it snows - the kids and the adults.
At the moment we all woke up to six inches of Mother Nature's dandruff that morning, our mindsets and lives drastically split in course.
Not unlike a Christmas morning, the kids are probably the first to get up in a household. They rush to the radio with hopes of hearing at least a one-hour delay of school. Meanwhile, still snuggled in bed, the adults dread starting their day an hour early to allow time for clearing snow from the car and driveway. And almost always a cold breeze somehow finds its way through the windowpane and in between the one crack in a dozen layers of covers.
Back to the children and radio - they clearly aren't satisfied with a just one-hour delay. No school bus can make its way through this snow, they reason. The kids also become Weather Channel junkies, swearing that if they go to school, a blizzard will hit and trap them indoors.
By the time the adults get out of the shower (the only warm part of their day) and walk into the family room, the kids have memorized the alphabetical order of schools, crossing their fingers as their district approaches.
When school finally is canceled, the children are rejoicing and the adults are in pain. What are their kids going to do for the entire workday? Well for starters, the kids can shovel the driveway! Mom and Dad need to call grandparents and neighbors who can baby-sit for the day.
Proud of having found a way to avoid shoveling snow, the adults can sit back with a warm cup of tea and look out the window at the winter wonderland. Maybe this snow isn't so bad; it is kind of pretty and peaceful. Those sentiments last only until the parents see their kids running through the yard launching snowballs at each other instead of working on the driveway.
The parents get outside to find the driveway is half shoveled, Timmy has lost his left glove and Susie needs to go to the bathroom, but her zipper is frozen with snow and ice.
Frustrated, the adult decides to just drive over the snow-filled driveway, even if that means the tires pack the snow, creating an ice rink that will last for weeks. They drop the kids off at Grandma's and it's off to work.
The opposing lives of kids and adults continue throughout the snow day. While the kids are sledding on toboggans down hills, the adults are sledding in cars down roads. While adults are buried by paperwork on the job, the kids are burying themselves in snow.
But even though all these divisions exist on a snowy day, I contend at the end of the day the two worlds of kids and adults can come back together. Perhaps it's because I'm still young, but I was ready to be a kid again by the evening it snowed ... unfortunately, nobody in the newsroom took up my challenge for a snowball fight.