Sick Day

Winter kind of sucks. You've got to devote literal minutes of your time to letting things "warm up" before using them, water reneges on it's promise to only freeze unless it's in the best interest of a delicious tropical beverage by causing us to slide all over the fucking place and bears are free to roam the neighborhood in packs, pawing at mailboxes and tipping over garbage cans. Oh, they may say they're hibernating, but we know better.

Nobody enjoys dealing with the cold weather. Unfortunately for some of us, our parents were too stupid to go about planning an unexpected pregnancy the proper way by at least moving to a warm weather climate before giving into the romantic allure of bourbon and the backseat of a Chrysler. Some of you got lucky and your folks did manage to move out to California before you showed up to ruin their lives. Of course, you're the same assholes who complain about it being SO COLD and how much of an inconvenience wearing a sweatshirt can be when you're LITERALLY FROZEN SOLID. I hate you. Die in a fire.

There is a temporary escape for the rest of us, however. Well, providing you're still in school anyway. Yeah, you know what I'm getting at. Throw on some slippers and grab a box of cereal, because you're taking a sick day! Get ready to enjoy some hard-earned R&R; while the corporate drones are resigned to run their rat race so they can pay for their precious condominiums and enjoy their two week's vacation down the shore with the rest of the sheeple. Keep working toward that pension plan, old man, because the Social Security well is going to dry up faster than children have a chance to fall into it.

For those of us in the workforce (and by "us" I mean "you"), a co-worker taking a sick day accomplishes nothing but piling even more stress onto a psyche already one vending machine running out of individually wrapped Swiss Cake Rolls shy of clipping motherfuckers from atop the old belfry. When Johnson from accounting calls in sick, that puts the responsibility of handling The Big Assignment squarely on your shoulders, and all that's going to do is expose you as a fraud since you've basically been phoning in your performance for the past three years anyway. When a kid stays home sick, they're doing a community a great service. Let's face it, our schools are grossly overpopulated by jerks and delinquents as it stands. I'm pretty sure Mrs. Clarke would love a day where she's got one less kid whose going to steal her lunch or light her desk on fire to worry about.

Besides, once you're poised for career in any one of tomorrow's high-tech job fields, aside of needing a light dusting every now and again the computers are going to pretty much run themselves. It's not like you're really going to need that education anyway. And it isn't like your teacher wants to instruct any more than you want to learn, so it's a win/win situation for everyone!

Of course, much like the planning of the perfect heist, a lot of effort has to be put into making sure your sick day goes off without a hitch. As an imaginative child whose wit and cunning had yet to be tainted by years of alcohol abuse, my mind was rife with an abundance of quick answers to satisfy the onslaught of my mom's nearly NKVD-like interrogative prowess. I'm aware that not everybody has the mental dexterity to think as quick on their feet as I can, so I've taken the liberty of providing a transcript of one such situation. Be sure and note the subtle nuance with which I weave and craft each flawless sentence so that it's devoid of flaw and impossible to refute. Audio transcripts will be available upon request. Check it:

Me: Mom, I don't feel very good.
My Mom: What's Wrong?
Me: I just... I just don't feel very good, is all.

Genius.

In all honesty, faking sick isn't too hard. You've got to adhere to a few simple rules is all. I'm sure you've all pulled it off enough times as to not require my typing them out, so I'll just sit here and laugh quietly to myself about how hilarious today's Mallard Filmore strip was while you go over them in your heads.

Take THAT, liebral not-so-smart-ocrats!

PSYCHE! THIS IS PROGRESSIVE BOINK'S JUSTIN WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HERE! OF COURSE I'LL LIST 'EM FOR YA! RIGIDLY FORMULAIC ARTICLE STRUCTURE IS WHAT I'M ALL ABOUT!

1) Plant the seeds of doubt early.

Otherwise you're going to sound like a poorly translated video game when you start yelling "I AM NOT FEEL GOOD," before oscillating between a grey screen and "VIDEO 1." The easiest way to prep for a sick day is to announce the night before that you're not feeling very well and that you plan on turning in early that night. The best way to accomplish this is to stand up during a time when you know your parents will have nothing important to distract them and loudly bellowing out "OH MAN! I AM NOT FEELING VERY WELL! I THINK I WILL TURN IN EARLY TONIGHT!"

It bears mentioning that you do not actually have to go to bed early, so long as you manage a grand theatrical performance out of informing your parents that you plan on doing so. Once you're in your room feel free to indulge in all of the creepy fetish pornography you've got to be careful to hide, because if your friends ever found it you'd be ridiculed even more than the time when Kinger and his buddies stripped and duct taped you to the hood of his van before driving around the school parking lot with a megaphone, yelling for the implementation of a NERD CROSSING sign to be put up so to avoid further damage to finely-tuned American automobiles.

2) Never fake being sick on a Friday.

One of the key things to remember about faking sick is that you're not Helen Keller and this isn't The Miracle Worker. When you stay home from school you enter into an unwritten contractual agreement which states that by missing class, you forfiet any and all right to go out that evening with the intent to "stir a ruckus." So avoid faking sick on a Friday, because while everyone else is at Teen Sex Bluff totally hooking up!, you'll be stuck home listening to the awkward grunting of your parents having sex and the quiet whimper of your mother's post-coital sobs. Then again, you were probably already planning on staying home to scrutinize the upcoming changes scheduled for the revised D&D; 3rd edition over the Internerd with the rest of the neckbeards. Look alive, boys! Those angry e-mails aren't going to write themselves!

If you are desperate for a way out of the house, there is a risky escape clause should you find yourself brave enough to evoke it. Claim that you can't believe how great you feel and how you must have had that eight-hour stomach bug they were talking about on the news the other night. It comes from birds, you know! The filthy ones. Be careful though, as your gambit operates under the assumption that your parents are ignorant rubes who don't watch the news and will agree out of instinct so to not appear as the ignorant rubes we already know they are.

3) Check your calendar.

I cannot stress this enough. There's nothing more potentially embarrassing than waking your mother up early in an attempt to trick her into believing that you've come down with a touch of the vapors only to have her hit you in the head with her bedside ashtray, tell you it's Colombus day and that if you don't go back to bed you'll be celebrating the genocidal slaughter of innocent Native Americans from the comfort of a hospital room.

Great! You've pulled it off! Now you're just stuck with things to do. It's a Tuesday morning after all, and the stripper and free money parade isn't until next week! D'ooooooooh! Don't worry though, because there are still plenty of ways to entertain yourself.

7-11 (lol)

Sleep in for a few more hours while your parents get ready for work and snipe at one another's shortcomings under the pretense that they just haven't had their morning coffee yet. You're sick, remember, and have to play the part. Sliding down the stairway banister outfitted in a top hat and tailcoat while whistling Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah isn't the best way to portray yourself as a Contagious Carl. Lay low for a while, essa. Let the heat die down.

Once your parents leave for work, you've got free reign of the house. Go downstairs and pour some cereal directly into the milk carton. It's okay. You've earned the right! Feel like masturbating in the living room without having to worry about waking up your parents and being sent back to Dr. Perry for more behavioral restructuring? The world is your oyster, buddy! Today is your big day, and you're free to do whatever it is you'd like. Unless you've got one of those weird parents who insist upon taking care of you, that is. In which case, enjoy bland chicken soup out of a can and flat ginger ale while you help your mother address Christmas thank you cards as she makes snarky comments to you about how tacky the gifts given by your father's side of the family are.

Providing you're left alone, it's important to remember to vocalize exactly what you'd be doing were you to be attending school that day, just to keep your sense of propriety in check. If you're not sure of what it is you'd be doing, feel free to borrow one of the following stock examples:

• "Oh man, if I were in school right now I'd totally be taking a history test!"
• "Oh man, if I were in school right now I'd totally be watching a boring video about photosynthesis!"
• "Oh man, if I were in school right now I'd totally have the entire football team snapping at me with stripped pieces of electrical wiring while I'd try to avoid ingesting my own salty tears!"

11-1 (Daytime TV)

The Price Is Right

If sloshing through the drek they broadcast while people worth appealing to are busy contributing to the betterment of our civilization were a religious pilgrimage, The Price Is Right would be Mecca. Killing the time between waking up and The Price Is Right isn't much of a problem anymore, though. Mine was the generation brought up right before video games and the Internet became a common household fixture. These days, kids can entertain themselves for hours on end by logging into YouTube and watching clips of idiots hurt themselves to the delight of other idiots. When I was growing up, I had to suffer through hours of Mama's Family reruns. Oh that Vinton! What crazy mishap will mama have to get him out of this time?

It's kind of sad, actually. With Bob Barker's imminent retirement looming on the horizon, we'll be the last to genuinely enjoy the show as it was meant to be before CBS retcons it into The NEW Price Is Right. You know they're going to try and pull something ridiculous like replacing Barker with a brash young surfer or interjecting all of the pricing games with clips of MTV's Bam Margera acting like a total dick to his friends and family members for no apparent reason.

Speaking of Bob Barker, I find it pretty upsetting that the guy has hosted an immensely popular game show for over three decades and has devoted a good portion of his life toward promoting animal rights, yet he's gained the most noteriety amongst college students for what amounts to nothing more than a moderately amusing scene in Adam Sandler's second funniest movie. I mean, he manages to hit the trifecta of annoying comedy cliches.

1. Old white people acting out of character by swearing, rapping or "raising the roof."
2. "Bitch" being used at the end of any sentence, ever.
3. An easily recognizable catchphrase people can repeat over and over again because MAN IT JUST KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER!

Commercials

Daytime television commercials target the only three demographics of people home during the day to see them; deadbeats, slackers and women. I know it sounds pretty misogynistic, but I can guarantee that for every half-hour of television you watch before 3 PM, you'll see at least one advertisement for an attorney or law firm specializing in personal injury claims, one for a horrible technical institute devoted toward courting dropouts with slogans like "THINK YA CAN MAKE A BETTER VIDEO GAME, SLICK? WELL HERE'S YER CHANCE," and one for a pregnancy test or yeast infection creme. I'm not talkin' trash, man. I'm talkin' truth.

Judge ______ shows

The only thing more entertaining than listening to poor people squabble over pittance is listening to poor people squabble over pittance while a sassy judge presides over the hearings, occasionally reminding the defendent to "check the tone," or "watch the lip, buddy." Although some would say the genre has long since stagnated, I feel as though the strides they've taken to assure it's continued success well into the new millenniums are commendable. In the span of a decade we've gone from codgery old white men presiding, to codgery old black women presiding. If that isn't doing more to abed racial tensions than Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln rolled into one, I don't know what is!

1-3 I wonder what Josh had for lunch today...

By this point, you're probably growing tired of watching people sue other people for deformation of this and destruction of that, but it's still early and you've got plenty of time to fill. At this point in the day, the allure of staying home has lost it's luster and you've begun to remember why you're planning on running away once you turn sixteen. There's still plenty to do, though. You've just got to get a little creative is all!

• Refresh the same five Internet pages over and over with the hope that in doing so, some magical new content will manifest itself for your amusement.
• Work on a puzzle. Continue doing so until you remember just how utterly retarded puzzles are. This should take anywhere from two to five minutes, depending on your level of concentration.
• Rummage through your sister's stuff and/or read her diary. This sounds like a great idea in practice, as sitcoms always portray a sister's diary as a limitless source of informative blackmail fodder. Unfortunately, in real life all you're going to get are poems describing her emotional reaction to that month's particularly heavy menstrual flow. Have fun coercing that memory into recession.

Well, there you have it. I hope you've managed to have enough fun to justify the educational disadvantage you've dug yourself into by missing that day's lesson about scientific notation. I don't have to worry about that, fortunately. I go to community college, What that means is so long as I'm able to dress myself in the morning, I'll pull better grades than 95% of the Asian women and homeless people with whom I share an institution of "higher learning."

Enjoy being grounded come report card day, suckers!