Droopy eyed boy.

I still have until November before I can take sick days, which really sucks. It means that if I get sick before then I just have to suck it up and go to work or suffer the smaller paycheck. This also really sucks for those days that I really, really, really want to feign an illness so I can sleep past seven in the morning. Today was one of those days.

I've always been pretty responsible when it comes to getting up and getting my ass to work. I think I've only called-in sick a handful of times, and I always felt really guilty about it. It was never a matter of not getting paid for those hours, but because I had some strange feeling of debt to my employers. (This is probably why I worked at the state park for two whole summers and couldn't bring myself to quit. Once I tried to put in my two week's notice and one of my bosses tricked me into staying for another month.)

This morning I was very close to leaving a message on my boss's voicemail. I was talking to Megan online, who was trying to give me pointers. ("I just emailed my boss to tell him to reschedule a meeting he planned for this afternoon because I'm leaving early," she said. "Again.") She told me that I should tell my boss that I got sick from eating something. "Tell her it was oysters! It's August, they're still in season!" Then she wondered how easily I would get oysters, considering I'm from Chicago, which is "pretty land-locked." (There are a couple things I would have added: A. I would never eat oysters*, and I doubt my acting abilities would allow me to believably convey my oyster appetite, and B. Are there oysters in Lake Michigan? I have no idea. Living on a Great Lake sometimes leaves me baffled because it seems like it's as big as AN OCEAN. But that's just because I'm an idiot.)

I was considering this plan, thinking of all the things I could do with my day. Of course I would sleep-in until ten. Why not?! Then I'd do laundry, which needs to be done. Well, I really just need to put away the clothes that I washed two weeks ago, which have been sitting in my laundry basket under a pile of dirty clothes (because I'm much too lazy to open the closet door and then put them in the hamper). (I realize that doing so would probably prevent that musty, dirty clothes smell that has begun to fill up my room. Note to self: buy some air freshener.) I could also work on unpacking the last boxes that have been awkwardly sitting in the living room for over a month. That needs to get done.

But honestly, I’d probably just lay on the couch all day with Christina (who finally moved in on Sunday!)** watching Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

Of course, I inherited my mother’s genetic guilty conscience, and it always gets the best of me. So here I am, one grande frappuccino (with an extra shot of espresso) later, thinking how I’d still be asleep if I had the balls to call-in sick.


*Eventually I’m going to devote an entire week’s worth of blog entries to chronicle my eating foibles. You strangers in cyberspace have no idea.
**For those keeping track, Christina arrived at 3:30 PM on Sunday. We had our first fight on Monday at 9:30 PM. It took longer than I expected. (And, if you’re curious, it was because she told me that she wanted to go on The Amazing Race, and I replied, “But don’t you have to be athletic for that?”)