Case of the Mondays

The bright spot in my day so far? This joke:

Two hats are on a coat rack. One hat says to the other: you go on a head.

Yup. That's it. The one thing that has made me smile today, the only part of my day so far that has been worth while. Sad state of things really. I was thisclose to calling in sick but because I had Friday off, I thought I had better not risk it. Better save that for a day when I really can't face going in. I'm sure it will come up sooner or later. Who am I kidding- sooner.

I am one hour into the work day and I am already berating myself for being too chicken to just pull the trigger and call in sick. And by call in sick I mean get out of bed and send an email notifying Amy that I will not be coming in today. That's all it takes, I don't even need to put on a convincing sick voice (although if I did, I do find that its best to do so right when you wake up, before you have uttered a word to anyone, you get that sleepy-frog-in-throat-morning thing going on and it sounds like you are really sick with the distortion that the phone adds).

I am left wondering, had I called in sick, what would I have said? I mean inevitably there are questions upon one's return about how you are feeling. And if you are already 100% on your return, is that not suspicious? Can you call in a legitimate "case of the Mondays"? For a while I would tell them that I found that if I started to feel under the weather it was best to take a one-day time out to rest and hopefully head it off (I'm sure that this is actually true) and they seemed to buy that.

See, I don't actually get that sick all that often. Maybe once a year (wow did I ever just jinx myself or what?). So how come I get penalized for being healthy? Its not like I get to convert the leftover sick days to money. Or vacation days. So why would I give those up?

Well I clearly wouldn't.

(I think I just punctured my foot with the heel of my shoe. I don't want to look in case its bad, it doesn't feel good)

In past jobs, the ones where I felt motivated, validated and generally content, you would never have caught me skipping out on work. No sir. I would work with swollen limbs, sprained feet, violent colds, fevers, hangovers- whatever. But now? Hell no, not worth it. So these days, I try to plan ahead. I observe, see how others are feeling, try to determine if these colds around me are perceived as contagious. If so I try to play up symptoms, kind of give a heads up to management that I am coming down with something and I may not be coming in tomorrow. Hardly surprising really, what with that virus that is going around.

If there was no planning ahead I try to come up with some other kind of physical ailment that would prevent me from coming into work. Something like a sprained ankle, just a light sprain obviously, one that would benefit from an additional day of rest (and a couple of days in running shoes at work). The only thing with a sprained ankle is that you have to pretend to have a limp for a couple of days afterwards, and thats something that is easy to forget.

If you are me, its pretty easy to come up with some physical ailment, because I am both klutzy and prone to odd physical calamities. I fall down a lot. I go to 3rd world countries on holiday during influenza like outbreaks. One time I went out in the evening to watch the airplanes take off and land and came back with some odd bites on one leg. Which soon ballooned into an elephantitis-esque mess on my leg, causing extreme pain when standing. It was hot and itchy and burny and all that I needed to do was stay off of it. Turns out I'm kind of allergic to bug bites.Not deathly allergic, but enough to get some serious swelling and pain. I think that I have laid sufficient groundwork for this not to be questioned, should I decide to go with that one morning (it is of course seasonal).

In the end, I can be as honest (when I really am sick, but like I said, doesn't happen that often) or as creative as I like, it will still come back to bite me in the a**. I will still get questioned or made to feel guilty. And in the end, it will still have all been worth it for one glorious day of freedom and crap daytime television.