Your alarm doesn’t go off. You’re now freaking out. Mom totally forgot to wake you up for school. You still have to change, brush your teeth, toast your poptart—all before grabbing lunch money and rushing out the door. And you have to catch the bus! You sprint downstairs all ready to yell, but an overwhelming aroma takes your anger hostage. The house is slow moving, mom has prepared hot cocoa and warm chocolate chip pancakes for you—and even better snow is still falling outside. It’s a snow day.
In high school snow days meant sleeping in, meals fit for a king, never getting out of your pajamas and endless TV/movie marathons. There is literally nothing better. You already did your homework because the school didn’t cancel until 4 am, so you were blissfully unaware of this surprise and could now enjoy the day.
And then you get to college.
Sure—I knew it snowed a lot in upstate New York; however, I didn’t realize it would feel like I lived in a snow globe. I mean, it literally never stops snowing. You wake up every morning after putting a spoon under your pillow, flushing an ice cube down the toilet and wearing your pajamas backwards but classes have not been cancelled.
The roads are not plowed and the walkways have not been salted. It is a blessing if you make it up the hill without wiping out on those black ice patches that are now hidden under the fresh powder that refuses to cease falling from the sky.
The other day, some magic happened at Colgate though. The phone rang and rang. It was the school calling to say morning classes were cancelled. A wave of excitement rushed through my body as everyone yelled that we finally had a snow day up here. We began to talk about the possibilities of the day—we thought we had so much time.
And then we realized we went to college.
Our planners were summoning us from across the room. They screamed our assignments at us, teasing us about the three papers, two quizzes and endless readings that were going to be due.
It became clear our moms were not going to be bringing us pancakes as we laid in our beds. In fact, it was clear we were not going to be eating any food all day long considering our cars now resided under a mountain of snow and the thought of cleaning that off the roof was endlessly horrifying. Dad always did that kind of stuff.
And while you got to sleep in a little longer than usual, you had to get up because pretty soon all the seats in the library were going to be filled. When you step outside the snow is up to your knees, and the snow boots you thought would be excellent for upstate weather seem to be struggling as much as you are to defy this day. You continue on through this tundra, and hope the snow stops soon.
All you wanted was to build a snowman, but there is simply no time (and let’s not forget you lost one of your gloves when someone took your laundry out of the dryer to put theirs in).
Snow days were once magical. They had a ~mysticism~ about them. They gave us relief. They were a beautiful, frosty break from the monotonous days of high school. And then college happened, and snow days became a thing of the past. No amount of snow or ice would keep us from going to class or the library; it simply couldn’t.
At least the Colgate Inn provides cinnamon sugar butter with their chocolate chip pancakes.