Snow days are simultaneously the best thing ever and a giant pain in the ass.  They are amazing because (especially in snow-panicky Virginia) you usually find out about them the night before it snows.  This means a couple of things: You know you're going to be able to sleep in, and that you justify having more cocktails than would normally be advisable on a weeknight.  This in turn leads to snow days being awful because you frequently start them with a hangover.

Snow days are also horrible because once you actually have the day, all of your exciting plans for what you would do with a day off promptly fail to come to fruition.  This is partially because of the aforementioned hangover, but also due to your general cold-related lethargy and the simple fact that you live in a city that doesn't get snow very often and is thus full of panicky, no-drivin' fools when it does snow.  If you venture out by car you might die and if you venture out on foot your tootsies will be all cold and possibly damp.

Furthermore nothing is ever actually open on snow days.  We had two last week and while I was smart enough (and cheap enough) to stay in and avoid the cocktail temptation, I was bent on going to soak up some culture or at least do some shopping.  Now I am smart enough to stay very far from a grocery store in a Virginia snow storm, but I figured at least I could hit the art museum which was of course closed. So were all of the other museums in town and as far as I could tell, all stores of any interest whatsoever.  I almost went to the Lowe's Home Improvement Center because it was open and I was getting really bored.

The first couple of snows of any winter are always occasions for glee, but by the third or fourth everyone's over it.  In this last one, I kept thinking that I should go out to take pictures, but I did that in the first snowstorm (which was more picturesque anyway) and really no one needs to see twenty more poorly-focused pictures of Broad Street Station in the snow.  Every time I looked out the windows, Grove Avenue was utterly deserted.  Sheesh, the first time this happened a few weeks ago, people were wandering the streets like toddlers, gazing with awe at the snow.  This time the few people I saw just looked grumpy and damp.

Finally, I developed a plan that took care of my by-then crushing boredom and answered the question of where everyone was.  I went to cocktail hour.