Hi, my name is Mr. Reeve, and I like snow days.

I know I shouldn’t. As a teacher, I’m supposed to get all grumpy about school cancellations. In education classes in college, they taught us “Snow days are bad. Be sure to frown. Get annoyed. Complain about the good old days, when we used to hike for miles through the snow, uphill both ways, etc. Sure it’s cliché, but you’re a teacher, so use as many clichés as you like.”

It’s sort of like a professional tradition. Postal carriers are supposed to hate dogs. Dentists are supposed to hate bubble gum and Oreos. Helicopter pilots are supposed to hate tornadoes. OK, maybe helicopter pilots really DO hate tornadoes, and for good reason, but the point is that people in every profession are supposed to hate something.

All teachers know that school cancellation is terrible news. It makes the school year longer, so we have to teach more days in steamy June weather. It means students have to go one more day without classes, and we know that most of them are just dying to find out who won World War I, or whether the metric system wins out. It means daycare issues for working parents, and it means having to root through the closet for those snow pants that go “voopa voopa” when you walk around.

I know, I get it. Closing school because of a snowstorm is what they do in wimpy, weak-minded towns who can’t take the cold. My teacher handbook says that whenever school gets cancelled due to snow, I’m supposed to respond with hearty “Bah. Why cancel school for a few inches/feet/yards of snow? Why, in MY day, [insert cliché here]!”

I understand all of this. The problem is I like snow days anyway.

After all those years of going to school as a kid, and all these years as a teacher, I still glance out the window and then run to the TV to see if school is cancelled. I feel the anguish when the TV news station, listing the school closings in alphabetical order, shows the town before ours on the bottom of the screen, and then cuts to a commercial.

And then, nothing can replace that tingly adrenaline rush when I see “Lincoln Public Schools – No School” roll across the bottom the TV news. I know I shouldn’t be glad, because it means a longer school year, etc. But what feels better than climbing back in bed on a snow day?

It’s sort of like when you eat that extra piece of pie at Thanksgiving; you know it’s probably not good for you, but it just tastes so good, you can’t say no.

That’s my confession. Go ahead, take my union card, and revoke my school parking privileges if you must, but there’s still enough kid in me to go “ooh ooh ooh” when I see the snow in the road, make a little “Yes!” when school is closed for the day.