Sick days

Anyone who has read any of these columns knows that I'm not exactly a promoter of teaching being an actual profession. It's just a job that requires a college degree. It's a job with the most unbeatable hours this side of being Keith Richards. It's a job that pays pretty damn well, all things considered. And while you need certain intangible qualities to be a good teacher, you don't need a lot of talent or skill to just land and hold a teaching position. Take me, for example.

I'm no Mensa candidate. I can't sing, can't dance, can't draw, and - as you can tell - can barely write. However, there is one area in life where I do possess a true talent, a talent that helps me in my job. I am exceptionally skilled in the art of using sick days. Some teachers merely dabble in this domain. I, on the other shameful hand, have taken the using of sick days to high art.

Each school year, I am allotted ten sick days, three personal days, and about ten funeral days. (I've never been exactly sure how those death days work, but I've never been denied when I've had to use them. More on that later.) We are allowed to accumulate our unused sick and personal days and roll them over to the following year. I know several hoary headed old bastards whose accumulated sick leave total is well over 200 days. I have been working in this system 20 odd years, which means that I, too, could have that impressive amount of sick-leave capital stored up in case of a long-term illness or catastrophic injury. I could. However, a quick check of my latest pay stub indicates that I have exactly 16.5 days available in my sick leave bank. That's sixteen-POINT-five, not 165. That's not even four week's worth of built-up sick leave. That's not even enough to get me through a hernia operation. That's pathetic, is what is it is.

What makes this low number even more remarkable is that I have never really been ill or incapacitated. Oh, I've been pretty sick with nasty-assed colds, and I've had the occasional stomach virus, but the most days I've ever had to miss in a row was three, and that's because I'm a world class pussy when snot builds up in my lungs and sinuses.

But until I contract AIDS from my Haitian boyfriend or shatter a femur while staggering into the kitchen for that fourth martini, I am not going to regret one sick day that I have ever taken, because the bulk of them have been taken when I have felt great, resulting in scores of glorious days off. I live by the warped philosophy that says, "If I'm sick, I might as well go to work anyway, because I'm going to be miserable there no matter what. But if I take a day off, I want to feel good, goddamnit." Hence the over 200 exhausted sick days. I have taken off work to do light yard work on a warm May Friday, even though Saturday was predicted to be more of the same. I've taken off a day to watch Olympic hockey. (I don't want to hear one word about that one, you Four-Day-Weekend-March-Madness assholes.) I've taken off days to Christmas shop. (Oh, like you haven't, you lying sack of monkeyshit). I've taken off just because I wanted to sit in a quiet house and be alone to do nothing. (Unfortunately, this usually led to boredom, which led me to a bar by noon, which led to the end of boredom.)

Of course, there have also been days where I have taken off and not felt so great. I've planned many days off after concerts or sporting events when I knew I would wake up with a John Belushi-level hangover. I did that this past December, the day after a hockey game. I spent the day off in my recliner, wishing for death, unable to eat until 4 p.m., and then able to force down only half of a Quarter Pounder. That was a true sick day. However, I usually just go to work when I'm hung over. On some of my more epic hangover days, I have thrown up in the boys restroom, fallen asleep while showing a movie and created such a foul funk with my hangover farts and alcohol smell that I have rendered my classroom almost inhabitable. But I still showed up for work. Then, after suffering through the longest eight hours imaginable, I've rewarded myself and taken off the next day. On most of those days, I probably started drinking right around the time my sixth period started, which resulted in - you guessed it - another hungover day at work the next day. It's a vicious cycle, but I endure. I'm tough like that.

I have taken sick days when I haven't felt so good, but not because of any physical malady. I took off a lot of days in the months leading up to each of my parent's deaths. I felt physically great, but since they didn't, I couldn't really enjoy those days off. However, both parents had the good graces to die during the school year, enabling me to use five funeral days each time. Had either died in the summer, I would have lost prime summer vacation days. Instead, my dad died in early December, which made for a sweet holiday month that was bookended by a week off at the beginning of the month for the funeral and a week off at the end of the month for Christmas. My mom died in mid-June, meaning I got to end my school year seven days early. They were caring parents, timing their passings that way just for me.

Pops could have held on until Christmas break, rendering a much-needed winter holiday nothing but a week of exhaustive mourning. Mom could have hung on until the last day of school, turning that first glorious week of sun-worshiping summer into a maudlin exercise of indoor, air-conditioned grief. But damned if they each weren't loving enough to kick off during the school year. I know this sounds harsh, but I assure you that I do have some regret concerning my parents. While I'm glad they stayed married for over 40 years, sometimes, during the long winter haul between President's Day and Spring Break, when we have no scheduled days off, I find myself wishing that they had gotten divorced and remarried other people. That would mean I'd have two elderly step-parents right now, one of whom might be ready to kick off some time this March, giving me a much needed pre-Spring Break. But alas, my parents stayed together, which means no March funeral, which means I had to use a personal day last Friday and perhaps a sick day next week.

If all of my goldbricking hasn't sufficiently disgusted you, you should know that a large number of the days I've missed have not cost me one sick or personal day. I have missed a boatload of days for conferences and other time-wasting professional activities. One year I missed 18 days before I added in sick and personal days, of which there were many. I missed seven days for jury duty, most of which found me quickly dismissed by 10 a.m. and free to enjoy the rest of some stunningly beautiful April afternoons, which I enjoyed by looking through the smoky windows of a darkened bar. I missed five days for my dad's funeral. I missed four days because I was on some state testing committee and two more days for field trips. Add in all my sick days and personal days, and I missed about 15 percent of the student days that year. Keep this in mind the next time you send your sick child to school, telling the little pussy that he won't get anywhere in life if he stays home every time he has the sniffles. Or a dead parent.

I know this column didn't have the bite or humor of some of my previous efforts, but you'll have to excuse me. I am suffering from a nasty cold. Am I at home recovering? Of course not. I am writing this in my classroom while my soon-to-be-similarly-infected charges are laboring over some prime busywork. I just have to tough it out until I feel better. Then I can take a day off.

Ned Bitters teaches high school and dreams of one day seeing one of his former students on stage at a strip club. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.