Snow Danger, Like Joe-Danger

No, I haven't been in grade school for quite some time now, but there's still that thrill of waking up in the wee hours of the morning and running downstairs to see if school's been cancelled for the day on account of the overnight snow storm. My Friday morning went a little something like this:

Around about 4:30 I woke up a bit restless and decided to roam around the house and check outside the windows for the "big snow" that was supposed to come in. Sure enough, lots of fluffy white stuff was illuminated as it fell by the street lights. Ahhh, very good, I thought. Winter is, without a doubt, here. And so after taking in the pretty scene of fresh snow falling on asphalt (the streets, as opposed to cedars) I decided to climb back into bed for a little while and wait for my alarm clock to go off - something I do quite often (hold this thought, refer back to it as Point A when directed).

Ba-Beep, Ba-Beep, Ba-Whack. Out of bed. Giddy. The dog was up with me, excited about something, she didn't know what, only that "dad" was more excited than usual at this hour. I threw my glasses on and ran down stairs to turn on the television. And there we sat, Ginger and I flipping from channel to channel, watching each channels "school closing" ticker tick on by. One by one the school's were rolling by... Would the school's in our neighborhood be closed? I couldn't stand the suspense! Tick. Tick. Tick. There was so much snow outside, they had to be closed! Tick. Tick. Tick. When are they going to get around to the N's and S's?!?! Tick. Tick. Tick. Almost there... Almost there... And... YESSSS!!! School's closed!!! That means NO SWIMMING THIS MORNING!!! Whoo-HOOO!!!

Back to bed I went, tuckled up in the depths of my down and my fleece. The dog, curled up and relaxed again. The alarm clock re-set for a later bat-time and bat-channel. It may not be a snow-day from work, but there's still that thrill of having some affiliation with a school and waking up to see it closed for the day!

Of course... It did kind of suck that I missed my swim session, as I wound up missing the previous day's as well. On that particular morning, I awoke around about 20 minutes before my regular time. Wide awake and eager to get up and get in the water. "No, no, no Joe. Just close your eyes for a little bit longer. Relish these moments before the insanity of the day begins." And so I did. But funny enough, it wasn't my alarm clock that woke me up later that morning. In fact, it was the sun light. "That's so weird" I thought as I came to, "I haven't woken with the sun since summer."

(Refer back to Point A)

And so my thoughts continued: "Geese, that sure felt like a lot more than 20 minutes of extra shut-eye. Hmmm... Let's see, what time is it? Oh sonnova!" So sure enough, my alarm clock never went off because some idiot (namely, moi) forgot to turn it on the night before. Brilliant. Not all was lost. I did manage to set a new land-speed record on my way to work, as I had a grand total of 20 minutes to wake up, get showered, get dressed and get to work.

Note to self, and to all of you: Alarm clocks work best when set to "on".