Long-awaited sick day

I've always been intrigued by the concept of paid vacation and sick days. Since I turned 16 and started working, I've only called in sick once (and that was my very first week at Domino's), and taking vacation days, while fun, always left me wondering how I was going to make up for the money I didn't make that week.

So naturally, I couldn't wait until I had a real job that would pay me to go on vacation and pay me to be sick. I loved the concept that you wouldn't always have to work for your pay, and that jobs with benefits would take into account that you need a day off every now and then and would pay you to do so.

It was quite exciting the first time I got a holiday off (Memorial Day) and still got a full paycheck. It was even more awesome when I played in DC for a week and still had a normal paycheck waiting for me when I got back.

Now all I needed was a sick day, and my life would be complete.

The only problem with that, though, is that technically you have to be sick to call in sick. I haven't been sick (beyond allergies, headaches, and other non-contagious stuff) since my sophomore year in college, which, shockingly enough, was four years ago. I was starting to feel invincible, and it felt pretty good to be confident in my ability to not ever get sick, even when those around me were coughing and sniffling.

Well, I guess I bragged about that a little too much, because come Halloween night, I started to feel a bit woozy. I don't know why, but this made me a little bit giddy. By the next day, I knew that this cold was for real, and I left work a little early to stock up on cold medicine, orange juice, soup, tissues, and hot cocoa mix. I was ready to experience my first paid sick day ever and it was going to rock.

Unfortunately, the next day, Wednesday, was packed with to-dos, and I wasn't about to skip out on one of my busy days (those are my favorite, by the way). So I went to work, and soon understood why people complain about being sick; it really sucks keeping up with your normal routine when your body isn't 100 percent.

Not about to repeat that experience again, I decided my best course of action for today would be to . . . stay home and sleep all day. I like to be lazy, and I finally had an excuse to milk it for all it was worth without the productive shoulder angel making me feel guilty; because really, it's hard work being sick. Simply making a trip to the bathroom or heating something up in the microwave is enough to make you a little dizzy and somewhat exhausted, so it can be argued that you did work hard enough to deserve watching that second movie.

So my sick day consisted of watching daytime television, taking naps, reading my book, and crocheting. (Although I had to watch my movie on my laptop because my darn DVD player won't play anything but Boy Meets World at the moment; that show is just too awesome to live down, and now that I'm done watching all the episodes I guess my DVD player is protesting.)

In short, my first paid sick day was supremely awesome. Even with the mountain of tissues I've gone through, the fact that my head still feels like it's trapped in a bubble, and the medicine that is doing its best to make me feel weird, it was all worth it because it allowed me to truly feed my laziness and enjoy it more than I have in a long time.

Sadly, though, I'm bringing this brief reprieve to a crashing halt tomorrow, because I have too much work to do to justify taking tomorrow off too. I'll probably hate being sick 12 hours from now, but I must admit that for today, it's been kind of awesome.