At my first shitty retail job, I knew corporate was coming to visit. I also knew that my usually chill boss became really shitty trying to suck his boss’s dick.
So what I ended up doing was deciding to do the ol’ fake stomach illness. There was a stomach bug around so it wasn’t too unbelievable. The day before I acted a little weak and queasy towards the end of the day, and made sure my manager knew.
Next morning, when I called in sick, I made it all theatrical. I stayed in the bathroom, opened the toilet, and faced it when I called, so I could get the authentic speaking into the toilet bowl sound. When I made the call, I asked for my manager sheepishly, got really nervous, then proceeded to actually throw up.
Karma.
I went on a road trip with this guy and just completely ditched school. But the university has an attendance policy where you auto-fail if you miss x amount of classes. I went to a local hospital saying that I’d been in the emergency room the week before and didn’t get a note for my teacher. But I asked a doctor speeding through the hallway. He was so busy he just yelled to a nurse to write me up one quick.
The nurse just asked me what to fill in. I said “he suggested bed rest for a week.” Was pretty sweet.
When I was in middle school I would always test the waters with my mom by saying “my stomach hurtssss”. Sometimes she’d buy it, but most of the time she’d just say “suck it up, you’re going to school.”
One morning I tried it and she got angry at me and called me out for trying to skip school. I panicked and (not knowing what the phrase implied at the time) said “HAHA NO ACTUALLY I’M FEELING A LOT BETTER NOW..MUST HAVE JUST BEEN MORNING SICKNESS!”
She just stared at me a minute and said “please don’t say that to anyone at school.”
Not my own story, but a guy I used to know. He had a job at a supermarket and couldn’t get a week of to go on holiday, so he simply called in sick. Because he went skiing that week his face got tanned, except for the place were his ski goggles had been. He then decided to get in a tanning bed with a balaclava on his head. The result was that he got hideously burned red around his eyes, so he called in sick for a second week.
Lived near my grandma and boosted her syrup of ipecac. I figured I could use it to throw up a little in front of my mom and get called in to school.
Turns out ipecac makes you violently and forcefully throw up for a long long time. I burst a blood vessel in my eye and pulled muscles in my abs….my mom was trying to get me to go to the hospital with her but every time I was like “No no no….Im feeling better really”
I was determined to get myself a 3 day weekend to play a new game I’d gotten for my 10th birthday a few days previously. My mom was always extremely diligent at checking for real symptoms before she’d let me or my siblings call off.
A temperature was too hard to fake (no holding the thermometer against a light-bulb, she wouldn’t leave the room), but I figured I could do a convincing sore throat. No cherry tootsie-pop, it had to look real.
So I woke up a half hour early, went down to the kitchen, and gargled hot sauce. Seriously. It was painful as hell, tears streamed down my face, and I felt like I was going to die. Then I brushed my teeth to get rid of the smell (still don’t know if that would have worked), went upstairs, and called my mom. I remember being quite impressed that my voice was even realistically hoarse.
But the instant I said “sore throat” she responded “That’s been going around” and called me off without even looking in my mouth. I felt cheated. And now my throat WAS sore for most of the rest of the day.