The shitty thing about calling in sick when I am actually sick, is that I feel a need to prove that I'm not faking it. I almost feel guiltier when my plight is legitimate than when I am playing hookey. This morning, when I left early because I simply couldn't prop my fever-addled noggin up on my clammy hands any longer, I really wanted to know if my supervisor thought I was faking it. If she was a bitch, I wouldn't care, but she's nice and I didn't want to be letting her down. There wasn't a lot I could to lend veracity to my request to be excused, other than a contrite tone of voice and an overly tentative, stooped posture as I crept out of the cubicle. I guess I could've tried puking on her, but I'm not that desperate to cement my credibility. In college, a friend of mine had the perfect line to use while calling in sick: I've been in the bathroom all day. No self-respecting supervisor's going to question that one. No details are necessary there. Mitchell suggested the blunt but effective I've got the shits.

And when I am sick, nothing astounds me more than the seeming invincibility of the healthy. Driving home from my prematurely aborted workday, stopping at Hy-Vee to get Thera-Flu (nothing knocks me out faster), I just couldn't get over how effortlessly the people around me were standing, walking, sitting at the deli. Old men three times my age were sipping coffee and chatting without having the chills, sweats, or imminent diarrhea. How do they pull it off? Driving back towards my house, I saw students striding confidently down Burlington without once doubling over and clutching their abdomen as their bowels clenched. Amazing! They are gods among men! I long to walk among them.

I think my body hates me.

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