Talk around the office today was the impending snow of doom. I’m counting the minutes until the snow falls, mostly because it’s on a weekend and I don’t have to go anywhere if I don’t want to. One of my favorite things to do is watch snow – from the warmth of my home, with a book and a tasty, hot drink.
I get giddy at the words “winter storm warning”. Most people want to knock me out for hoping for snow. But I’m okay with snow as long as I don’t have to go outside, snow usually means it is in the 30’s. It’s those bitter cold double digit negatives I don’t like, you know the ones that make your eyeballs freeze when you just think about going out.
I can remember as a kid, snow days meant hours of being outside, usually doing things we were told not to. “Don’t dig tunnels, they’ll collapse and you’ll be trapped.” So what did we do? Dug tunnels. And when they collapsed, we promised each other not to tell Mom we dug tunnels. “Don’t eat the icicles and snow, it has gross stuff in it.” So of course I whipped up a seven course meal of snowballs and icicles for my brother and we feasted. We lived to tell the story.
But the big one was when I nearly gave my brother hypothermia. There was a creek about 4 or 5 houses down from us. HUGE rule about the creek, as I am betting you would guess. It was just a little thing, maybe knee high on a third or fourth grader (me), probably waist high on a kindergartner, who unfortunately drew the short straw in life to be my brother (oh the stories I can tell about what I did to him…). But, moving on! “Do not leave your yard, DO NOT GO TO THE CREEK.” Blah, blah, blah…
In one ear and out the other, adventurous people don’t get great adventures following the rules! “Let’s go on an Arctic journey!” And amazingly enough it ended up at the creek. NO idea how that happened. And of course the ice was inviting and wanted us to slide on it. I honestly do not remember getting on the ice myself (I’m sure I probably did…), but I do remember my brother scrambling down the side of the bank with a stick “ski pole”. Of course about two steps off the bank the creek ice cracked open and in he went. Like I said, it wasn’t that deep and he was able to get himself out and back up the bank.
So there he was, dripping wet in an orange (mine was purple) snowsuit and and all I could think of was “We are in SO much trouble, we can’t go home yet.” He stood there, teeth chattering, waiting for me to head home.
“We can’t go home until you dry out.”
“But I’m cold.”
“You have to dry out so they don’t know we went to the creek.”
Between chattering and tears, water starting to freeze to his snow pants… “It’s too cold!”
“OK fine. You are going to get us in SO much TROUBLE.” I was cold too and the fun was over since he had to fall in. He always spoiled everything fun.
So we long trekked through the “Arctic” back to our own yard (longest trip ever because I knew we were headed for punishment). I may have added a few extra houses to that trip hoping he would dry out before we got home. Needless to say, he didn’t.
We certainly were punished, complete with spankings. My cousin had gone through this adventure with us and she was not used to being disciplined, long after we had gotten over the paddling, she was still crying. I think because of that, it helped my brother and I bond and forgive each other much quicker than usual.
I’m surprised he still likes me. But hey, I’m pretty sure we got hot cocoa WITH marshmallows after that, so who wouldn’t?
