As I sit here in my room at the ripe old age of 20, I glance out the window at a snowstorm that could only be caused by a PMS’ing Elsa who just couldn’t let it go any longer. The thought of a cold substance seeping into crevices of my body I didn’t even know existed once brought me feelings of sheer excitement and now makes me want to get to know a realtor in Arizona. It’s as if with each passing year my inner child has become corrupted by a unpleasant concoction of Scrooge and the Grumpy Cat who thinks it would be pretty funny if all of this snow were cocaine instead.             

But as I continue to look out the window, patiently waiting for global warming to take effect, I notice that something is missing. Where are the snowball fights and the complete lack of regard for safety by sledding down what locals have coined as suicide hill? Where are all of  the snow penises in front yards? Dammit, where the hell are all of the kids?! 

Before I continue my rant, let me grab my rocking chair, a shotgun and a tad bit of racism to yell at kids to stay off my lawn while I lament about the good ole days. So put down your phones and put your clothes back on, ya damn hooligans. You can finish sexting after I’m finished. For now, listen up. Your elder is speaking.           

 ‘Twas the year 2000 and every child alike was entering the magical (and slightly homoerotic) world of Spongebob along with the mystery of just who in fact let the dogs out. It was a simpler time, one where we showed girls we liked them by wiping our boogers on them and saying mean things like, “You lack the physical attribute of me in the nether regions, therefore I am superior to you and you have cooties.” Something like that. We didn’t have fancy iPhones back then to make up for our Malaysian Airline sense of direction. If we got lost, we had to make a fool of ourselves and scream for our moms until some nice lady helped guide us to our clearly neglectful mother, all while managing to avoid the unmarked white van playing the ice cream song.           

We didn’t have the safe haven of Facebook to post about our pre-teen angst with philosophical quotes from Marilyn Monroe or to show off our inspirational tattoos of an infinity sign on our wrist. (Granted, my grade was about six or seven years old at the time, so the only angst we may have had was that the lunch ladies served the regular mac n’ cheese instead of the far superior cartoon shaped mac n’ cheese, but still.) Instead, we bottled up all of our emotions until we erupted into a Mt. Kilimanjaro explosion of a temper tantrum like a normal child. And if we wanted to get our identity stolen, we sure as hell had to try a lot harder than putting in our credit card information to claim our prize for being a website’s 500th visitor.            

And dammit, it took much more than sub zero temperatures and a few inches of snow for our schools to cancel. Hold on, let me turn on my grandpa voice. *Cough cough* Back in my day, at least a minimum of three kids would have to freeze to death and there would have to be credible photo evidence that the Abominable Snowman was in town to terrorize all of the students for the school to even consider closing down. Now my old school district and hundreds of other schools across the state have had two straight “cold days” in their effort to metaphorically castrate today’s youth. I say slap some metal spikes to the bottom of the student’s shoes, give them a flamethrower and tell them good luck. If worse comes to worse, their frozen bodies can always be used for science. Minus the schools down south of course, where they are equally unfamiliar with snow as they are with science.           

Now kids, before I gather up my old bones and pop a magical blue pill before I limp up to bed, I leave you with one more tid-bit of wisdom. When blessed with the once rare commodity that is a snow day, don’t waste it by staying inside playing GTA all day and treating the virtual hookers in a way that would make Ray Rice and Chris Brown look like the Pope and Gandhi themselves. Nut up, get your butt out in the sub-arctic temperatures, and go get a real hooker instead. Just like how we used to.