Excuses for Skipping Work
Janet Kuypers
3/6/16
With our insane work schedule
and how you could never miss a deadline,
I never took sick days off.
But one time
I decided I wanted
to go out with the guys,
there was a lull at work one week
and I decided to pick a day to go out
where I could take the next day off —
I had to make sure
it looked like I wasn’t
taking a day off
for a long weekend,
so it couldn’t be a Monday or a Friday.
I thought for a second —
hey,
let’s go out on a Tuesday night
and I’ll just take a sick day Wednesday.
No one will think
I was playing hooky
by calling in sick
in the middle of the week.
So Tuesday night came,
and we went out,
drank a ton,
and at one point
I was walking down the street
with my arms over the shoulders
of two men,
and we were walking in stride,
laughing.
But I think one of the guys
stepped in my path,
so my right foot landed on his,
and it twisted my ankle
and down I went.
My guy friend saw me,
turned around and sat down,
saying,
“Okay, this is a good place to sit down.”
But no,
he didn’t understand,
I was actually in pain,
it was like I had fallen
and I couldn’t get up.
These guys were my neighbors,
so we went home
and they helped me to my apartment door.
Fifteen minutes later
I had to call my neighbors
(who had my key)
and asked someone to get ice for my ankle.
When my neighbor came over,
he swore my ankle
was swollen with a welt
the size of a baseball.
Good thing
I happened to have gauze
and crutches.
Because yeah,
I took that next day off,
I couldn’t really walk,
and I hobbled into work Thursday.
My supervisor came into my office.
“I thought you were just
playing hooky yesterday,”
he said.
“Well,
obviously I wasn’t,”
I said,
and although I had a sprained ankle,
it was like no one knew the wiser.
And like I was one of the boys,
it was cool to have so much fun,
on schedule for us,
on a Tuesday night.
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