If you are a previous or future employer, besides my wife, you can go ahead and skip this entry.
I'm color blind that's why I dress this way, or my computer crashed and I lost my term paper, or its genetic, or, my favorite, they have weapons of mass destruction. Everyone loves a good excuse.
I was a teacher for five years and I heard a lot of flimsy reasons for not turning things in on time. The great thing about a good excuse is that it makes you use your imagination. I loved the details, the more elaborate the story the more believable it became. When it was a clear lie devoid of creativity, I used to use one of my dad's sayings, "I can smell a lie like a fart in a car." The students would usually look at me and as if to say, "why are you smelling farts in cars and what does a lie smell like?" or sometimes they would just laugh and fess up.
I really never cared that much, but I did appreciate the art of the excuse. Everyone, or I hope at least most people, have given the sick phone call to work doing your best coughy sick voice so that you could have a three day weekend or get over the hangover from the night before, no need to fake sick there.
Now, I see the real advantage in the excusal arts, kids. Once you utter the words my kids are sick, or even better go into details about their ghost ailment, most people have instant sympathy. What asshole is going to grill you about your kids health and whether you should stay home, and you don't have to do the embarrassing fake sick call, I am not much of an actor. Additionally, you don't have to walk into work looking sick, you maybe just fake a tired look, which is usually real when you have kids anyway. But really we don't stop there, I mean we use the excuse for getting out of just about anything, going to dinner somewhere we don't want to be, appointments that suck, jury duty, breakfast at a friends that we totally flaked on (sorry Alex), or if we just need some cheap sympathy from relatives hundreds of miles away.
Swine Flu, or H1N1, is ruining this gem of an excuse. When I come up with their fake illness now, I have to look up facts on swine flu and avoid any similar symptoms. Faking swine flu is a real commitment, like if you need to get out of something that lasts a couple of weeks, Christmas with family or parent teacher conferences. But be careful, if you say your kids are sick too much, people will think you don't take care of them, that your house is a hovel of human and dog hair, you feed your children coke and cheese puffs for every meal, and they will stop inviting you and your walking petri dishes around to play or for dinner. It's a balancing act.
Some people would say that I am inviting "bad karma" into my life and my kids are going to be sick more often. If that is true than I guess I will have more legitimate reasons to get out of things. If I have told you my kids were sick, it may well have been true. Even after reading this, I mean, are you going to be the asshole that questions the health of my kids, probably not, that is why it is the supreme excuse.
