Snow Days

Today's a "snow day", in other words a day when my children get off school because there's so much snow on the ground that school buses can't get through the side streets of individual subdivisions, i.e. neighbourhoods, which, in contrast to main roads, don't get cleared immediately.

As you can imagine, children love snow days because they don't have to get up early and can instead spend the entire day making snowmen, sledding and having snowball fights rather than listening to their teachers and learning.

Because kids prefer snow days to school, a number of fun rituals have developed over here in the New World to encourage the crystalised water to come tumbling down aplenty. Although not entirely scientifically sound, they make fun reading nonetheless:

• Putting a spoon under your pillow. Some say it should be licked beforehand. It doesn't matter whether it's plastic, metal or wooden, slide it under your pillow at bedtime, and a snow day is more-or-less guaranteed to follow. More comfortable variation: Putting the spoon in the fridge.
• Putting a picture of the Virgin Mary and a dollar bill under your pillow. More pious and costly than a spoon you can steal out of your mother's kitchen, but just as guaranteed of success.
• Putting a cotton ball under said headrest. Given how rare cotton balls are nowadays, if a child is clever enough to find one, it deserves a snow day for pure ingenuity.
• Flushing an ice cube down the toilet at 9pm on the night before the desired snow day. But only one ice cube (we don't want to call up a blizzard or block the toilet, do we?). A tried-and-tested snow-producer this, though whether it actually works is anyone's guess. Variation: throwing ice behind you so that it lands in the toilet. May have to be repeated several times until you actually hit the bowl.
• Saying "reverse" 20 times backwards. This one's challenging if your child is dyslexic.
• Wearing your pyjamas inside-out and back-to-front. My son does this most nights anyway, so since we don't constantly miss school, I suspect this might be a dud.
• Doing a snow-dance. The native Americans - red Indians to you and me - used this method to encourage rainfall, why shouldn't latter-day New Worlders dance to produce snow? Particularly likely to work if the dancer is wearing snowflake-patterned socks or sweater.
• Putting an orange in the freezer. Yeah, right! 
• Not thinking about or saying the word "snow". Very difficult if all you want is snow.
• Dancing around a cup of ice. Almost certain to add 2-3 inches of snow to the night's snowfall. I wonder whether European cup-dancers would add 2-3cm instead.
• Repeating a snow chant. Doesn't have to be complex. "Let it snow!" apparently suffices. Great for those unable or unwilling to dance. If you repeated often and loudly enough, the school authorities may offer you a snow day just to shut your kids up.
• Yelling "snow day!" into the freezer. Alternate, equally effective shout out apparently include yelling into the bath tub and under the bed.
• Placing 12 orange index cards on the hood of your car. This must be linked to the bizarre orange-freezing caper mentioned further up. If America had gone metric, this would, I believe, have been ten cards. But who has index cards in this digitised age? And how many children have their own car? The mind boggles.
• Throwing a paper cup out of the window. Why this should elicit snow I really don't know. But at least it saves on clearing up.
• Brushing your tongue for two minutes. I do hope this involves a toothbrush rather than a hair- or toilet brush. Even if this doesn't cause the sky to spew frozen gobs of water, at least your children have clean tongues. Tip for parents: get them to brush their teeth at the same time.
• Drawing three Xs and then colouring them sky blue. I have no information on whether this should be done on a piece of paper as opposed to a wall nor how one might colour something that has no un-coloured middle, but then again, I'm just a stupid Old Worlder.
• Running around the table five times. Not to be tried without adult supervision if your table is up against a wall. Injury rather than snowfall may result. The same goes for spinning around three times with your eyes closed.
• Sticking a white crayon in the freezer - and then putting it under your pillow. Presumably alongside the spoon.
• Sleeping on the opposite side of bed. I have no clue why this might work. Perhaps you feel so confused when you wake up looking in the other direction that you'll think it snowed. 
• Wearing gloves to bed. Even if it doesn't have the desired effect, at least you won't have cold hands at night.
• Placing ice cubes on your porch. This may well work. After all, if you put enough out there, you could be convinced it had snowed overnight.
• Sprinkling "shaved" ice on the branches of nearby trees and bushes. A very unsubtle hint to the weather gods to send a big freeze. If very desperate - or out of shaved ice - simply throwing ice cubes at the aforementioned plants may also suffice. 

And finally:

• Stacking pennies on your window sill.This one is clearly biased towards the rich, who have lots of pennies to spend on snow. Apparently each penny is worth one inch of the lovely white stuff.

Cleanliness

Given the twin obsession of so many Americans with washing and religion, I'm willing to bet that the expression "Cleanliness is next to godliness" was coined in the New World.

I've already written about tips given for avoiding infection and about what I consider "knee-jerk vaccination" that is conducted here for completely harmless - and indeed beneficial - diseases. Other local oddities include mandatory vaccination against Hepatitis B (at-risk groups: drug addicts and prostitutes) for all schoolchildren in the US. Add to this the fact that there are hand sanitisers wherever you look as well as anti-bacterial wipes routinely provided for cleaning supermarket trolleys, and you have the makings of a nation paranoid about illness.

Yesterday I came across something that highlights the lengths to which people go to avoid germs. It all started with a seemingly harmless question on Facebook: "What tips do you have to keep you and your kids healthy during flu season?" The responses (which for reasons too complicated to explain must all come from North Americans), are extremely telling from a European, spoonful-of-dirt-a-year perspective:

• "Wash their hands constantly and before eating with hot soapy water!"
• "Keep little immune systems healthy and stop the spread of germs with Kleenex® Anti-Viral"
• "Flu Shots & GermX!"
• "Making sure my kids and i stick to the '24 hour' rule [i.e. waiting 24 hours after a fever subsides] before going back to school or work. Wish more people did so as to NOT pass their germs!!"
• "I keep Germ-X next to the tissue box, kids sanitize their hands after blowing their noses."
• "Just keep the little germ carrier's home and feed them lots of Jewish Penicilin"
• "Everyone must wash their hands for a minimum of 20 seconds to be effective or singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star all the way through twice"
• "Hand sanitize or wash your hands as soon as you get off the bus, kiddies"
• "Washing hands a lot of course. I've added a chewable calcium with vitamin D to my kids morning routine"
• "Avoid washing your hands in public restrooms and use sanitizer after you leave the restroom instead. Also, don't touch any surface with your hands. I've gotten sick 10 less times a year by doing this"
• "Kids - and adults - have been known to die from the flu. I chose not to get the shot this year, and I have already suffered through one strain of flu this fall. It isn't fun being sick, and if you are in a weakened state of health it can be deadly. Wake up and smell the mortality."

And my two favourites:

• "Avoid people if possible. My Gramma has a shot of whiskey if she's been around sick people"
• "Get ur kids to take a bath as soon as they get home from school, that way they don't spread germs all throughout ur home"
  

Sauna à l'Américaine

Although they have become fewer and farther between as I have got(ten) used to the American Way of Life, I had a rare WTF, shakes-head-in-amazement, must-write-that-up moment this morning.

After almost two years in the New World, I hardly bat an eyelid at the neo-puritanical obligation to swim in knee-length shorts that would be banned in Europe as patently dangerous. I no longer try to kiss even close acquaintances, and automatically confine myself to loose, no-frontal-contact back-slapping hugs. I even oblige my children to close their curtains when undressing lest the sight of naked prepubescent flesh sends a neighbor rushing to call the cops. But I think what I witnessed today pushes the boat out way further:

Coming out of the shower in the men's changing room at my local gym, I glanced back towards the sauna to see a man sitting inside wearing - and I kid you not - a T-shirt, shorts, an elbow support, socks and trainers!

I'm too flabbergasted to even attempt to analyse this further, though I might start wrapping my towel around my waist again when I next visit the sauna - or invest in some Wonder Sauna Hot Pants:

Never Home Alone

It's little wonder that Kevin's cinematic parents were worried: they faced a serious fine or even several years in jail for their forgetfullness. That's because it is illegal in America to leave children up to the age of about 11 alone in the house. In fact, you're not even allowed to leave them unattended in your car while you go into a shop.

As a result, you rarely hear many stories about kids dying of heatstroke in car parks or babies left for hours outside restaurants.

It's high time such legislation was introduced in Europe.