snow makes children stupid

i, zerilda, am shocked.
i am also stunned.

here i am, in the admittedly cold kingdom of united, and was, days ago, made aware of the impending snow. i prepared as much as i thought i should: i got some new gloves. at no point did i prepare for the eventuality of not getting to work, or that my children would be temporarily denied education.

i DIDN'T EVEN BUY A SHOVEL!
so imagine my surprise when i got 4 official school texts (2 for each child!) informing me that school would be closed. they arrived before my consciousness did, which is to say, before my alarm.

i got a little worried.

you see, where i'm from, it SNOWS!!!!! look:

enough snow to make samuel l jackson refer to it with m-f bombs:

a BUTT-LOAD of snow:

yes. i used to live with THAT. THAT's what closes schools where I'M from. we are hardy in america.
see this guy?

he has places to be! a little snow doesn't get in his way! so i took my worried self over to the window to assess the horrors that had befallen us here in britain.

THIS IS WHAT CLOSES SCHOOLS IN BRITAIN:

are you KIDDING ME? 

i went downstairs to watch the news. this was similar to their report (without the arrows...!) :

OH MY BOB!!!

how ever will they get where they're going on those NON-SNOWY roads?

and so it was that my children got a day of sitting around the house, watching tv, playing on the wii, and generally NOT being further educated. they're never IN school!

if MY school had cancelled classes every time we got a tiny smattering of snow, no one in my state would have gotten an education! we'd have never gone to school! we'd all be serving "fries with that!"

i suppose i should cut this country some slack. i grew up where it snowed a lot. i know how to cope. i can competently drive in snow. but i avoid it here, because the locals can't negotiate mildly snowy roads. you only have to say the *word* snow and a car, somewhere in britain, shoots off past breakdown lane...

so i went to work. without taking a shovel to my car. i might have put on the gloves.


and after saying "REALLY?!" repeatedly whilst smacking my forehead, i was told that schools are closed because snow is a health and safety issue.

WHAT?!
SNOW?!

SNOW IS WATER!!! 

i had no idea i grew up in a death trap!!! i feel like i should sue mother nature. i could have been someone great! instead, i was hindered by the snow. snow made me less healthy and less safe. but i'm a survivor!

thank god someone figured out that snow is so deadly, so that the only impact it would have on my children is to inhibit their education. WHEW!

or are they really hiding something more sinister...