Not From Around Here

You know that social experiment where there's a bunch of grad students taking a test and the room starts to fill up with smoke, but the authority figure acts like there's nothing wrong? Supposedly only a small number of people will defy authority to say, "Hey, look, there's a problem. We need to get OUT."

Well, today St. Paul Public Schools robocalled our house to tell us that they were open despite the tremendous amount of snowfall. All of St. Paul's charter schools are closed, but the public ones are remaining open. I called them back (Crossroads, specifically,) to say, "Nope. Ain't doing it." Because, you know what? No. Some of the streets are very passalbe--I know, because Shawn decided she wanted to try to get to the History Center today and I took her--but the side streets are atrocious.

Also: screw them.

I don't know why St. Paul is being such obstinant morons about this. There's like seven inches on the ground and it's still falling -- fast and furious. The plows haven't gone out because they didn't call a snow emergency last night and the roads SUCK ROCKS. Forget it. I'm not risking taking Mason in to school today. Apparently I *am* willing to risk myself and my partner, but seriously, yeah, I think that's different. Though I did tell Shawn that history could WAIT, even for the State Archivist of Minnesota. But she's an authority I can NOT defy. Plus, she can take the public bus home if the roads get worse and I can also go fetch her at any point. ;-) St. Paul Schools also have the ridiculous policy of not closing early once they've made the decision to open.

It's funny because we were kind of talking about this at MarsCON this weekend, too. A bunch of us were hanging out after the Blog panel on Sunday--a large contingent of "transplants" (though haddayr and naomikritzer and I should hardly count any more, since we've lived in Minnesota now for a LONG time) and a few native Minnesotans. We were talking about how Minnesotans are particularly bad at speaking up for ourselves. This came up because, while on the panel about blogging, some guy got a phone call in the front row on his cell phone and... answered it. He actually sat twelve inches from us and talked on the phone. I have to admit that my usual, "Hello? What are you DOING?" did not come out. Sometimes, I'm so STUNNED by people's behavior that I can't to react right away. Haddayr was giving this dude a healthy stare down, but he was oblivious. Luckily, the conversation was quiet and short, but, damn. I can't believe I didn't say something. None of us did.

As was pointed out in the conversation afterwards, we really should have said something because Fandom allows a lot of strange behavior and, unless people get called on it, they tend to get the message that while it might not be okay to do "x" in the mundane world, it's okay to do it at con.

Shawn, in fact, argued that I should not tell Crossroad's attendance line that the reason I was keeping Mason out of school today was because of the snow. I said that if we don't tell them, they're going to keep thinking it's okay with us that they risk our children's lives. But, we compromised. I didn't say anything at all about why I was keeping Mason out today, other than that he should be considered an excused absence to the official school line. But, I did send a private email to the school saying that I found the snow policy moronic.

So I guess that's the best a Minnesotan can do. ;-)