Daily Dose Of Iron(y)

Irony is funny. Quite humorous, really.  Well...except when it is highly irritating.  Then it is most certainly not funny.  But, it will be. You just sort of have to wait it out a bit.  The humor will eventually start to show through.

For example, if you happen to be so sick of winter that you can't stand it, then a sudden snowstorm in April will be very ironic.  And not at all funny.

It will be even more ironic if that storm happens to fall on April first.  In fact, that is the very height of irony and perhaps even a bit of an exception.  You can't help but shake your head and chuckle a little when a major snowstorm drops by on April Fool's Day.

I find my attitude towards snow days somewhat ironic.  The first one that rolls around is always cause for great celebration.  Whoo-hoo!!!  A day off right in the middle of the work week!  No school for Sheepie!!! I feel the same way about the second one.  Even the third is something of a giggle-fest.  I likes me a nice, big snow day!

However, the fourth time the auto-dial system calls me to tell me I should stay home, I start to get nervous.  These days are piling up.  This means a longer school year.  Noticeably longer.  And the fifth time?  Well, that just sends me right into a spiral.  Five days is a whole week!  A whole extra week with these children who don't want to listen to a word I say and don't care that the government gets mad when they aren't educated!

Suddenly, I hate snow days.  You don't even want to know what I'm like when the sixth call comes.  By then, I am so immersed in my depression over the whole sorry business that I can't even function enough to enjoy my day off.  All I can think about is how I will be going to school until the end of June and how the teacher workshops we have to attend after the kids leave will literally mean I don't get to start enjoying my summer break until July.

That which I once loved becomes the very definition of that which I hate.  Ironic...

So maybe the snow day situation isn't quite funny yet.  I'm certain that I will one day be able to tell the tale of The School Year That Wouldn't End with a twinkle in my eye.  I'm guessing that this will be sometime into my fourth year of retirement and while I am telling some of the shiny, fresh new teachers all about how Ms. Sheep survived teaching back in the good ol' days.  They will look at me with awe and maybe a little bit of pity since they don't know about despair yet.  They will still be at the Changing The World One Child At A Time stage of their careers.  This, I think is what will help me to start feeling the funny.

Meanwhile, since I am nowhere near retirement and this school year from the bowels of the underworld is still very much in progress, I suppose I should settle for finding the bright side.  There has to be something to which I can cling in these dark, dark days.  Something.  Just one little thing...

Like a finished sock!!

I even had time to start the second.  One whole toe all ready to go!  That's something.  I'll maybe even have it finished in time to wear my socks to school.  This doesn't really require much in the way of stretching the imagination.  School is going to be going on for a while this year.  I'll maybe even be able to wear them to this year"s Middle School Independence Day And Algebra Test Party.  Yup.  It'll be 97 degrees in the shade and I'll still be in school wearing my newly knit, festive wool socks that I worked on during the snow days.

Also very ironic...

SA