It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

We had all been counting down to that day: Friday December 17, the last day of school before Winter Break. Then along comes Tik Tok to spoil the moment. 

Schools across the country chose to shut down rather than live through "Shoot Up Your School Day." This "challenge" was posted just before we all got our shoes on to head once again into the fray. Once more before two weeks of only having to deal with the rest of the planet and not the potential for violence in our place of employment. 

So, it's an Internet Threat, what possible harm could come from that? Well, from where I'm sitting, the harm has already occurred. The fact that anyone might possibly take an anonymous post seriously suggests that we are living in a state of shock and dulled awe. Mission accomplished idiots. You did what COVID variants could not: You got schools closed. Again. Just as we were starting to turn back the tide of nearly constant reminders to pull up your mask and use hand sanitizer and make sure that your classroom's air purifying system is working, we have to start thinking Kevlar. 

Why take something like this seriously? Well, let's say that you're a school district in the central California town of Gilroy, and students in your area have been sharing this post for a few days. And you just happen to be living in a place where some nimrod opened fire on their annual Garlic Festival, killing three and wounding seventeen others. Your response might be a little different. The specter of a mass shooting looms much differently in communities that have already lived through one. Thanks to antisocial media, you can take a big wide swipe at an entire nation with the press of a few buttons, and the rest of us have to decide for ourselves if you happen to be the kid who got a gun for Christmas, who didn't like his grade on that final, the angry parent who is fed up with Critical Race Theory.

Or just some kid who wants one extra day of vacation. 

Five years ago, Halloween was ruined by incessant rumors of people dressed as clowns, roaming the streets of unspecified towns, looking for prey. Killer clowns were enough to scuttle many schools' plans for trick or treat, long before COVID. Aren't the times in which we currently live scary enough? Who needs clowns? Or Tik Tok? 

I went to work. Just another day. When it could have been such a happy one.