Yes I'm Angry. No you cannot have my tacos.

I’ll admit I’m a little aggravated. Okay I am a lot aggravated!!!!


This is not a spiritual problem per say, more like a problem that reaches all the way back to most of our childhoods and yet gets amplified by a million when you become an adult and work in the profession that I work in.

Let me explain:
I want you to think back for a minute, if you will, to the days of your childhood. Let’s start with summer. Sorry Spring, even though you are one of my favorites, you are getting left out in this post but don’t worry…we will see and speak of you soon enough. Back to Summer… Oh The baseball games in the backyard!! (usually with at least one neighbor kid you didn’t really like but needed someone to play right field and go get the foul balls), the trips to the dairy drive-in down the street (I can’t tell you haw many times I flipped over the couch cushions and raided the floorboard of my moms car to find that last nickel I needed in order to get a small swirl cone!). The water balloon fights you would spend 2 hours preparing for and it would last a total of 6 minutes including the three time-outs you called so that your big sister didn’t totally cream you in the face with the biggest water balloon she had….Then comes autumn.

Baseball switched to football and the kids you didn't like still played. Only this time you were really happy to have them playing…..especially if your mom had to run to the grocery store and the game could temporarily switch to tackle football with kidney punches and eye gouges allowed. Don’t forget the leaf raking and burning days. Those too were awesome for a kid. Fire is always cool (no pun intended) to a kid. But along with Fall, also came school. This was not so enjoyable for most of us.

Sure you nerdy folks with your pocket protectors and your abacuses and your special “home made” lunches with fresh chocolate chip cookies and hand written notes that reminded you of how gifted and talented and awesome you were every day, sure you enjoyed school. Most of us were not so lucky. I was the high pitched borderline fat kid with the ridiculous amounts of acne (beginning in 5th grade) that carried the hammy down backpack and used the boring yellow non-mechanical pencils. I don’t even need to describe how a typical school day felt for me. But nevertheless we all usually managed just fine with school during the Fall because we at least had a few things to look forward to when we got home. see above for football and kidney punch story..…then came the dog days of winter.

In the winter for the most part there was not a great deal of things to do. I mean sure you could lock your sister out of the house when it was her turn to feed the dog. Or you could begin making out your list for Santa and try to go ahead and explain exactly why you had thrown bubbles into your sister’s eyes and why you thought it would be a respectable thing put the Woopie Cushion under grandma at thanksgiving. Chances are Santa wouldn’t be fooled and all your efforts to persuade the big man for a go-cart were going to go in one ear and right out the other. But it was at least something to do. HOWEVER!!!!! Regardless of your age, gender, or cool status there were always two little words during this time of year that got every single kid in the world excited enough to go streaking through the house at 6 am with nothing on but Darkwing Duck underware, that should have been retired a long….long time ago. Those magnificent words……… Snow Day.

Ah yes the snow day. The day where all of ones hopes and dreams come true and the biggest responsibility of the day changes from vocabulary test to lets see how many letters of the alphabet we can write in the snow. (you boys know exactly what I am talking about). The day when you sleep in, then eat 4 bowls of cereal while watching the price is right. Next comes the first trip outside. You check the viscosity of the snow and pat out the first few balls of ammunition. Then you quickly see if you can still hit the neighbor’s birdfeeder from your back yard. Nope. They moved it. But that doesn’t matter because sooner or later your friends will come over and it begins the best day of winter so far!!!!

That is unless…..”Snow day Letdown” occurs.

Herein lies today’s reason for frustration.
I work in the public school system and as a teacher( technically I am the In-house Supervisor and not a teacher but who cares) We have a much more involved process that occurs leading up to a snow day.

The feeling a child has is nothing compared to the feelings of a teacher. You remember as a kid the feelings of glee, the feeling of excitement, the feeling that the world was yours for the taking and nothing could hold you down. Now take that feeling and multiply it by a million. This is what a teacher experiences.

You see the build up for a snow day is usually so much greater for a teacher. I think this is because most of us watch the news regularly and are devoted to the seven day forecast. Once we have seen the predictions all logic goes out the window. We forget that the weatherman is the only guy in the world who gets paid to predict the future, well him and the crazy cat lady down the street who will gladly interpret the warts on your hand and the sleepys in your eyes for 7 dollars and a ride to the liquor store. We forget all of the many times he has been wrong in the past and we allow the adrenaline to begin rocketing through our veins. This anticipation lasts all week. We subtly ask our friends and co-workers what they have heard and What they think is going to happen. When people ask us those same questions we try to sound as professional and rational as we can. We say, “I think there is a possibility, but honestly I would rather come to school and get them over with.” Most nod in agreement. But inside you know they are thinking exactly what you are thinking, “I need this day. I have earned this day…Please God let it snow let it snow let it snow.”

Then comes the night before the prospective day of Exuberance. We try not to get too excited in the presence of other people. We plan as we always do, lunch is packed, clothes are laid out, alarm is set. It is only in the private moments were we allow the excitement to show. After using the bathroom we look in the mirror for a little longer than usual and maybe even whisper to the person staring back at you….”snow day tomorrow…” then we wipe off the smile and head to bed.

You usually do not sleep very well on the night leading up to the “snow day” we check the clock at 3:30 then 5 and never fully enter into a deep sleep. Then as soon as the alarm goes off, we spring out of bed and, race to the T.V. we turn it onto the closet local channel. We read through the scrolling list at the bottom of the screen…..Hmm we wonder. It went from Adair County to Butler County to Grayson County….. “that’s odd”. We’re still heavily in denial. We walk to the window take a deep breath and bend down the blinds…..Snow day Letdown has just occurred.



Yes today was supposed to be a snow day…Yes everyone talked about it all week. Yes the weather man predicted it all week…No it did not happen…..Yes I am angry…At least we are eating tacos tonight… No you can’t have any- unless you can somehow guarantee that snow will come because of my liberal charity.

The "G" Card

Okay Here is the Scenario:

I was dating an older girl named Jennifer. We had been going out for a few months and then things started to get weird. Not “this girl is a psychopathic maniac” weird, more like, “This girl is definitely hanging out with my friend Mike more than me” weird!!!

Anyway, a few weeks later we had all but said to one another, “You are the worst thing that has ever happened to me since The Young Riders went off the air.” When she comes up to me and throws the G-card.

Yes the G-card.

It went something like this, “Josh we need to talk. I have been praying a lot and God told me that we need to break up.”

My response, “Um, like right now??….cause we are at prom and I need a ride home.”

It kills me when someone plays the “G” card!!

This move is where to win an argument you throw the God-card. You say, “Yeah, well that’s what God told me.” That’s a hard one to argue with. What can I say when you say that? “No he didn’t. I know God and he does not want you moving your family to Miami.” It’s a really dangerous move to make in the context of a marriage, too because it stops the conversation and forces your spouse to either give up their point or willingly choose to be on the opposite side of God.

It’s also one of those phrases we Christians use to punctuate or amplify our sentences. For instance, my friend Matt had a guy at his church proclaim in front of the entire congregation that God had told him in a dream that he and his wife were having a baby boy. Why did he do it? So that what he was saying would seem big and holy. It’s like italicizing and bolding your words. But a few months later they had a girl. Which is why you have to be really, really, really careful with the God-card

If someone plays the G-card and it's something they really, completely don't want to do ("God told me to admit to the IRS I've been cheating on my taxes." or "God told me to move to Haiti but I hate hot weather, can't stand rice, and don't feel comfortable taking baths in the river." or "God told me I had to forgive you even though nursing this grudge feels sooo good!"), I believe them.

When someone plays the G-card about something that benefits them, or about something they really want to do, or about something that makes them look really good... Um...not so much.

I’m not saying it will never happen to you. God could easily tell you something very specific about a whole host of things…..but if He does, be very careful how you broadcast it. And whatever you do…do not use it in a way that will make Him regret talking to you to begin with!!!