I feel a need to respond to Seattle’s blizzard mania. For an active outdoorsy city nestled between two respectable mountain ranges, the birthplace of legendary mountaineers, it ought to be just a bit embarrassing to be so paralyzed by a few measly inches. Streets aren’t plowed but there’s just an inch or two of hardpack to navigate. Sidewalks aren’t shoveled, but footprints have sufficiently cleared the way. Hills are mostly blown bare, but there is just enough slickness for sledding. And yet schools are closed, and tires are chained, and the city shuts down completely and not actually the day of the storm, but the day after – when skies are blew and winds are calm and it is actually a perfectly idyllic day.

Don’t get me wrong, I am completely in favor of a day free for improvisation, but the conditions just don’t warrant paralysis. A snow day use to be a badge of honor held sacred for only the most gnarly conditions. We didn’t earn this. The dusting doesn’t deserve this. I’ll take it, I just need to go on record as saying that it is, in fact, pathetic. This is not a blizzard. And this is not cold. Blue skies and twenty degrees is damn near ideal in my book. Buck up Seattle.

But if you’re going to give us the day off, what’s the point of calling us back to class tomorrow? Just give us the holiday week, acknowledge your weak spine and take pride in your playful priorities. I can rally behind that sort of honesty and I’d graciously benefit from it as well.