It's a Yellow Snow-Day...

My eldest child is just ecstatic. There isn't any school today. This gives him a three-day weekend.

After yesterday's water problems in the city of Shreveport, the school board decided to keep the schools closed on Friday, until the water is deemed safe again.

I suppose one might say that they are basically using days normally reserved for bad weather, or "Snow days."

Yesterday, my child came home from school all sorts of giggle-ish and with a sly smile on his face. He was very proud of something.

Apparently, at some point during his day, the kids were told NOT TO DRINK THE WATER!

They weren't exactly told why, so their little minds went to work and came up with an explanation.

From this explanation, a new term has come to light, "Mexican water."

This is supposed to mean something similar to the disclaimer used by some Mexican restaurants around town that is meant to be funny and can be found written across the bottom of their menu's.

This disclaimer normally reads, "Don't drink the water!" So, the kids at my child's school have come up with the idea that because they have been advised just that, that the city water must be like the kind you get in Mexico.

Then, the children seem to have spent the remainder of their day defining exactly what this must mean.

Since the treatment of our city water isn't exactly up to par at the moment, they have determined that it must have sewage in it, hence it is "Yellow" in color and must have urine and excrement mixed in with it.

Of course, you have to understand that this was the highlight of their usually dull school-day.

They all spent the rest of their day policing each other, trying to remind their friends NOT to forget and drink from the water fountain as is the normal habit.

Of course there is always the poor kid who forgets. Those children of course were informed IMMEDIATELY by their well-meaning friends as to the contents and new label of the water that they had just consumed.

This practice seemed to fill up most of the rest of their day. I think the other bit must have been spent watching and waiting for school to be dismissed early.

Even the school childlren knew that this would become inevitable since the water pressure was bad and the water was undrinkable.

So, once my eldest got home, he of course was all too excited to fill me in on the details of the day.

I was given a list of those poor, unfortunate souls who accidentally drank the water after they had been warned not to do so.

We also had a very informative conversation as to the potential contents of the water, and he even ran to show me that it looked a slightly different color (it looked like water to me!)

Every time he went to the bathroom, I was informed, quite gleefully, that he was contributing to our "Mexican water" each time he flushed the potty.

I suppose that I should be grateful, really. I mean, most days I have trouble getting him to REMEMBER to flush...

He was very anxiously awaiting the determination and ruling that school would be cancelled on Friday, so I kept a watchful eye on the website, waiting for the update.

Once it came, I just walked to the living room window and waived his Gameboy and PSP in the air so that he could see them from where he was, outside jumping on the trampoline.

When he came inside to see what was up, he asked, "What, are you trying to bribe me to change dirty diapers, or something?"

He was very ecstatic to find that the school board had opted to use what is normally called a "Snow day" for Friday and that there would be no school for that day.

This meant that he could play his video games and watch movies and all as if it were the weekend. He was going to have two Saturdays!

In his excitement over the "Snow day," he did come up with one more tiny way to describe his newly earned three-day weekend.

If the "Snow day" was being taken because of the water still being dirty, then it must be a, "Yellow snow day!"

Today, he has insisted upon wearing his t-shirt around the house that has a dog with his leg lifted on it, standing next to what appears to be a snow-bank.

The dog on his shirt is sporting a sheepish grin, and the shirt gives a sort of public service announcement. It reads, "Don't eat yellow snow."

Ah, the wonders of being a teen-ager! Remember, "Don't drink the water!"