Australia Day; Invasion Day; Triple J’s Hottest 100 Day– whatever you want to call it, January 26th is coming round the bend. And, with this year’s public holiday falling seductively on a Thursday, experts are forecasting the Australian economy to take a hit of some $54 million as thousands of Aussies tap out of work on Friday and score themselves a nifty little four-day weekend.
What does that mean? It means every man and his day-drunk dog’s gonna be chuckin’ a sickie this January 27th, and unless you want the boss calling bullshit on your sniffles you’re gonna have to get creative. Lucky for you we’ve already put in the hard yards, and thrown together seven watertight sick-day excuses to get you out of work this Friday.
“It’s coming out both ends”
Old faithful. Forthright yet ambiguous, subtle yet blood curdling vivid, the beauty of these five simple words is in the way they force your employer to connect the dots for themselves.
What’s coming out both ends? Which ends? How violently? Literally no one will ask you to elaborate on any of these details. Because as everyone knows: when it’s coming out both ends, it’s coming out at least one end too many.
“I think I ate a dud Chiko ‘cause my bed’s full of spew”
Similar to the above, this classic twist on the old ‘food poisoning’ failsafe is effective in the way that it absolves you of blame whilst remaining completely and utterly believable. Who hasn’t munged on a Chiko roll and suspected that they’d innocently vomit it up all over themselves later? It wouldn’t even need to be “dud”, per se– even in their ideal state, these things are basically deep-fried spew.
(Added points for authenticity if you actually did neck a Chiko before polishing off that second goon sack.)
“I had two or three mid-strengths and split my face in half”
We all like to bend the elbow and have a boot-scoot every now and then, and any employer would have to be a stonehearted wretch to not understand that. So what if your mid-afternoon tipple went from a couple of XXXX Gold’s with dad to a full-blown Aussie whip rave? So what if you’ve woken up on an ant’s nest and you can’t feel anything but your eyeballs? There’s no helping bad luck, and odds are this Thursday’s going to be rife with it.
“A bloke named Trent in a Bintang singlet punched me in the throat”
This is such a likely story that almost no employer’s going to ask you for the details– but in the event that they do dig a little deeper, embellishments are fairly easy to cough up. You were lying low this year, sipping Cottee’s and listening to the Hottest 100 with Nan when a loutish, sunburnt whippersnapper in a beer singlet and a bucket hat vaulted the back fence, socked you in the windpipe, and proceeded to do a shoey. Nice one Trent!
“A wild-eyed kangaroo’s trying to get into my house and I’m terrified to leave”
No matter the occasion, the foremost priority of your employer should always be the safety and wellbeing of his or her staff. And, since we live in a country where our national animals actually do fucking try to break and enter family homes, your boss can’t well call you out and insist that you leave the house. In the not so unlikely event that a grumpy roo does end up mauling you to death, they’ll be left staring down the barrel of a lawsuit.
“A wild-eyed Shannon Noll’s trying to get into my house and I’m terrified to leave”
Last week’s news story regarding Nollsy and the Crazy Horse strip club saw a national hero, humanised by the vices of beer and naked women, crumple under the weight of his own drunken ego. Mix five slabs of Carlton Dry with the fuck-everyone-who-isn’t-me hedonism of ‘Straya Day’ and you’ve got yourself a perfect storm for Hurricane Shannon to strike again. It could happen anywhere, any time–whose to say it couldn’t happen to you?
“Tiger Air”
Because Tiger Air.
Feature image: Esquire
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