Calling in Sick
Calling in Sick
Calling in sick to work makes me uncomfortable because no matter how
legitimate my illness, I always sense my boss thinks I am lying. On one
occasion I had a valid reason, but lied anyway because the truth was too
humiliating to reveal. I simply mentioned that I had sustained a head
injury and I hoped I would feel up to coming in the next day. By then, I
could think up a doozy to explain the bandage on my crown. In this case,
the truth hurt. I mean it really hurt in the place men feel the most
pain.
The accident occurred mainly because I conceded to my wife's wishes to
adopt a cute little kitty. As the daily routine prescribes, I was taking
my shower after breakfast when I heard my wife, Deb, call out to me from
the kitchen.
"Ed!" she hearkened. "The garbage disposal is dead. Come reset it." "You
know where the button is."
I protested through the shower (pitter-patter). "Reset it yourself!"
"I am scared!" She pleaded. "What if it starts going and sucks me in?"
Pause. "C'mon, it'll only take a second."
No logical assurance about how a disposal can't start itself will calm
the fears of a person who suffers from "Big-ol-scary machine phobia," a
condition brought on by watching too many Stephen King movies. It is
futile to argue or explain, kind of like telling Bill Clinton Americans
are over-taxed. And if a poltergeist did, in fact, possess the disposal,
and she was ground into round, I'd have to live with that the rest of my
life. So out I came, dripping wet and buck naked, hoping to make a
statement about how her cowardly behavior was not without consequence
but it was I who would suffer. I crouched down and stuck my head under
the sink to find the button. It is the last action I remember
performing.
It struck without warning, without respect to my circumstances. Nay, it
wasn't a hexed disposal, drawing me into its gnashing metal teeth. it
was our new kitty, clawing playfully at the dangling objects she spied
between my legs. She ("Buttons" a.k.a. "the Grater) had been poised
around the corner and stalked me as I took the bait under the sink. At
precisely the second I was most vulnerable, she leapt at the toys I
unwittingly offered and snagged them with her needle-like claws.
Now when men feel pain or even sense danger anywhere close to their
masculine region, they lose all rational thought to control orderly
bodily movements. Instinctively, their nerves compel the body to
contort inwardly, while rising upwardly at a violent rate of speed.
Not even a well trained monk could calmly stand with his groin
supporting the full weight of a kitten and rectify the situation in a
step-by-step procedure. Wild animals are sometimes faced with a "fight
or flight" syndrome. Men, in this predicament, choose only the "flight"
option. Fleeing straight up, I knew at that moment how a cat feels
when it is alarmed. It was a dismal irony. But, whereas cats seek great
heights to escape, I never made it that far. The sink and cabinet
bluntly impeded my ascent; the impact knocked me out cold.
When I awoke, my wife and the paramedics stood over me. Having been
fully briefed by my wife, the paramedics snorted as they tried to
conduct their work while suppressing their hysterical laughter. My wife
told me I should be flattered. At the office, colleagues tried to coax
an explanation out of me. I kept silent, claiming it was too painful to
talk. "What's the matter, cat got your tongue?" If they had only known
.....
