3 Ingredients to the Perfect Excuse for Getting Out of Work

It’s a sweet, nearly-Type-II-diabetes inducing gig that you have going. Unfortunately, you used all your vacation days for an epic, multi-day binge of Game of Thrones, Chinese food, and masturbation four weeks ago. Plus, that boss of yours has been just itching for you to slip up with attendance so he can fire you and hire his adopted son who’s gay, black, and handicapped in order to have him serve as the poster child for workplace diversity while satisfying a butt load of HR hiring quotas.

You need to be able to skip on Thursday and Friday, so what’s the plan? You did just run into Homeless Jerry again in the alley on your way our to work, and we all know what Homeless Jerry lacks in toes, sobriety, and nipples he more than makes up for in interesting smells and a proclivity to do just about anything for ten dollars. Sadly, your pragmatic side recognizes that being convicted as an accessory to arson, a bomb threat, or public nudity isn’t going to bode well for the inevitable job search should your conspiracy be unveiled. Homeless Jerry is out; looks like you’re on your own. Throw together these three key ingredients together to cook up a delicious excuse that your boss will eat up.

1. Needs to be Believable: Obviously, you need a craft a fake situation or event that’s highly plausible. Your boss isn’t going to be convinced that you need to save your dad from deep-space ninjas. He’s not going to buy that your guinea pig, Professor Oinks, is highly suicidal. And he’s not going to believe that you’ve just inherited a haunted, Alaskan gold mine that you have to spend one night in to be able to rightfully claim. Save you’re wacky stories for that X-Files fan-fiction blog of yours that no one reads. Simply stay convincing in your delivery and hit that seems realistic and serious and you’ll be in for a weekend full of hilarious stories and hilarious stains.

2. Has to be Unable to Verify and Left Vague: Keep your excuse to a point where there would be no reasonable reason for them to want you to validate it. Don’t use events where it would be normal to ask to see programs, ticket stubs, or certificates of death. Excuses like “parents are in trouble,” “field trip volunteer,” or “anniversary party” are strategically less detailed to a point where there wouldn’t be any specific artifacts, relics, or trinkets for you to bring back to confirm anything. Plus, those excuses are all vague enough that your boss wouldn’t be able to call any strangers in an attempt to destroy your Don Cheadle-like house of lies. Keep the excuse vague and you won’t have to recall the intricacies of the story on Monday morning after spending four days murdering brain cells from consuming a Hasselhoff-ian amount of booze.

3: No Loose Ends: Never, under any circumstances, tell anyone in the office what your actual plans are. Three can keep a secret if two are dead; so, until those two gossiping heifers in your office succumb to either heart disease or a hilarious tumble down a flight of stairs onto an opportunely placed skateboard, you can’t divulge anything like this to them, or anyone really. Yes, we know that pulling a ploy off like this has you feeling like Danny Ocean, but you can’t brag about it to anyone—you never can tell if one of those corpulent, corporate biddies is going to sell you out in exchange for a garbage bag filled with cake frosting from the boss.

Be confident, be suave, be Don Draper mixed with Ari Gold when you break the news to your supervisor that you can’t work Thursday or Friday. Play the part, act sincere, don’t leave any opportunity for your lie to be discovered, and, if they start to ask questions simply redirect the conversation to your boss’ children, because, goddammit, people love to ramble about their kids’ insignificant accomplishments.

Justin Gawel is an adult baby currently residing in Michigan. Find him @justingawel or at www.justingawel.com.

[Work excuse image via ShutterStock]