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Pull a Sick Day
That Real World marathon looking too good to pass
up? Here’s the trick to calling in sick.
Stuff,
2/19/2003
Migraines
They just happen. Nobody knows why, but everybody knows someone who suffers from them. The pain is so intense that the hum of the printer could send a workaday Joe like yourself into a full-on psychosis.
How long you can take off:
Migraines can last up to a week. When you’re faking it back at the office, think one-sided pain. “It feels as if someone’s sawing my right temple with a dull knife” will do. Just remember which temple it was.
Back Pain
The second leading cause of lost job time in America is back pain. Especially the fake kind.
How long you can take off:
With sciatica, you’ll be flat
on your back for two days, minimum. But a disk problem could last six weeks or longer. Tell your boss, “My back went out again.” Wording is crucial: “Out” can mean indefinitely. “Again” says it’s a recurrent condition. Either way, you win
a long weekend and suspicious glances when you return.
Wisdom Teeth
What kind of a deviant would fake surgery? You! All you. Wisdom teeth create a condition in which you have to go back and have each tooth pulled, one day off at a time.
How long you can take off:
“Schedule” it on a Wednesday and say your dentist thinks you may feel better by Tuesday. Come in on Monday and you’re practically Cal Ripken Jr. A line to try when you get back: “The empty sockets feel like soggy graves. Wanna feel ’em?”
Family Death
You’d sink this low to stay home and rearrange your shrine to Delta Burke? Well then, remember this: The deceased should be
a close enough relative that would warrant your taking days off, but not so close a relative that your sympathetic boss tries to send flowers to
a nonexistent church.
How long you can take off:
Most of these festivities wrap up in two to three days—unless you want to say that one of your parents died. You sick bastard.
Tonsillitis
Remember that Brady Bunch episode in which Carol and Cindy get their tonsils out and can’t even choke down something as soft as Greg Brady’s tongue? The moral of that episode: Inflamed tonsils hurt. If you still have your tonsils, they’re bound to get inflamed one sunny Friday morning. If you no longer have your tonsils, they’re bound to get inflamed one sunny Friday morning.
How long you can take off:
Tonsillitis is contagious. So, heck, you’re doing them a favor by staying out of work for three, four or eight days. Call in your excuse with an entire Twinkie stuffed down your pie hole.
When you finally return to the dream factory that is your cubicle, keep an economy-size bottle of vodka-laced Cloraseptic on your desk. If anyone asks
how you’re feeling, squirt liberally. Encourage questions.
Ate Bad Seafood
Perfect if you’re hungover: You were puking your guts out last night, so you aren’t technically lying.
How long you can take off:
Bad seafood will level you for at least two days. Unless you say you ate the Japanese blowfish, in which case you can call in dead. Tell the boss, “I went to this half-price sushi place at Target…ugh, not again…I gotta go…” When you get back to work, flinch every time you walk by the office aquarium.
—Lisa Lombardi
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