Playing Hookie

Bueller, Bueller... Bueller.  Has anyone seen Ferris Bueller?
He's out playing hookie.

As part of my new "taking care of my star player" campaign, I decided it was time to take a mental health day this week.  Okay, I decided to play hookie.  When you get a stomach ache Sunday night just by thinking about going to work Monday morning, it's time for a day off.  As my Monday was wall to wall meetings, I took Tuesday off instead.

When I was a kid, playing hookie involved faking sick (looking pale, sticking a thermometer under a lamp, coughing, sniffling, sneezing, and other NyQuil symptoms) in order to convince my mother to stay home, make me grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken noodle soup, and let me watch Wonder Woman re-runs all day.

Ahh, the late 70's and early 80's -
 a time when we were just happy to have a female superhero.

Nowadays, playing hookie is different.  At other adult jobs, the work just waits for your return.  As a teacher, that doesn't happen for me.  The children will be there at 9 am regardless of whether I am there or not.  We don't send them home and tell them to come back when the teacher returns.  Being absent from work involves lining up a substitute teacher to cover my class, writing sub plans, and coming back the next day to clean up the mess and hear about how awful my kids were for the sub.  It almost isn't worth being out because of all the prep work beforehand and the clean-up afterwards.  But, I haven't missed a day of work since November and it's almost March now.    It's time for a little break, preferably one that doesn't involve a bone.

I almost never take off work.  I haven't missed a day of work this year where I didn't have a fever of 102 degrees Fahrenheit or a broken bone.  I broke my ankle at 11am and worked the rest of the day before seeking medical attention.  Hey, the bone wasn't poking out so I figured I was good.  I got the flu and suppressed the fever with drugs just to come into work and give the kids a math benchmark. 

Picture it:  You have to picture it because clip art of a sick teacher doesn't exist. I looked.  The kids working on the test up front.  Miss Insert Last Name Here sitting at the back table, reading a test to a child while wrapped in a blanket because she got the shivers from her returning fever.  Boy, was that a mistake!



What a teacher actually thinks about before taking a day off from work

Now, I'm at home playing hookie and all I can think about is that it's 10:30 which means math class is starting.  Granted, I'm thinking about it while blogging, but the worry is still there in the back of my mind.  I'm going to try and see if I can refrain from texting my co-workers all day to ask how my class is doing.  We'll see how it goes. 

I have a Stephanie Plum novel by Janet Evanovich to read, six loads of laundry to do (the laundry pile is spreading towards the bedroom door in an attempt to escape), grocery shopping to get done to fill my empty cupboards and fridge, and a mountain of papers to grade. 

Is it really a day off work if you're doing work from home?  I don't know, but I'm about to find out.