Forget Orange Wednesday... This Is Technicolor Yawn Friday

Phoning in sick.

We’ve all done it. Sometimes we’ve even been genuinely ill.

Most of the time though, I bet we’ve all been swinging the lead. Pulling a fast one. Pulling a flanker. Gilding the lily. We’ve had a slight cough. A teeny-tiny headache. A bit of a sniffle. Nothing to put us on our backs. And we know this because although we don’t feel up to work we’re quite happy to stay at home, play on the Wii and surf for dodgy German web sites on the internet.

Physically we’re capable of work but we just can’t be arsed.

So we pull a sickie.

The subtle protest of the working man who is wise enough to know that his masters deserve to be given the finger occasionally. Because they pull sickies worse than anybody.

And it occurred to me today that, in this neon-lit, plastic-wrapped world of Bluetooth technology, there really ought to be an App for that.

A Ferris Bueller’s Day Off kind of app.

An app where you can ring your boss / wife / lawyer / sergeant / hairdresser / vet for the insane and explain to them that you will not be in attendance today due to [insert ailment of your choice here] and then supply them with the appropriate sound effect. Just to drive the point home and convince them of your bona fide need for a day at home on the sick.

Now if there isn’t an app like that then I am up for making one.

And this is where you guys come in. I need someone to supply the sound effects. I have provided a list of what I require below but do feel free to add your own suggestions. I always find that the more bizarre and outlandish my claims the more my boss is predisposed to swallow them as gospel. And do feel free to use props if it helps and I’d prefer the files to be mp3 if at all possible. Now, I’m running this on a first come first served basis so I suggest you get in quick before all the good ones go...

1) Whooping cough / consumption
2) Vomiting (apparently gagging on vegetable soup is a dead-ringer)
3) Diarrhea / the galloping squits (please remember to include groaning and then vast splashing noises as if someone has performed a water bomb in the local swimming pool)
4) Prolapsed sphincter (apparently ripping a cotton shirt and then screaming will plant the appropriate image into a anybody’s mind)
5) Having a baby (wouldn’t try this excuse if you are male)
6) Delivering a baby (hey, but this would work)
7) Going on a gun rampage because well, the police, they’ve got it coming, ain’t they?
8) Stigmata (maybe say “ow!” and drop the phone a lot)
9) Hysterical womb (only works if your boss is a bit Victorian)
10) Unplanned for amputation of foot with garden spade
11) Advanced stages of E.coli poisoning (more believable if you were seen eating in the staff canteen the day before)
12) Temporary insanity (you will lose points if you don’t utter the words: wibble wibble)
13) Sudden recruitment to Islamic fundamentalist group
14) Elephantiasis of the tongue
15) Sexual exhaustion (kudos if your boss buys this)
16) Impalement on the kitchen implement of your choice
17) Rabies
18) Scabies
19) Rickets
20) Cuthbert Dibble Grubb (sorry, lost my train of thought there)

Yeah. I ran out of ideas towards the end but you get the picture.

Just make them sound good folks because we’re all entitled to approximately 12 days off sick per year. Well, I am anyway. Let’s make sure we all get them!

Meal Ticket

In for the long haul as we are in Austerity Britain I’ve been racking my brain cell for ways to come up with money saving ideas and sure-fire scams to ensure we get more for our hard earned moolah now that’s it’s plain the bankers aren’t going to flick us the crumbs from the banqueting table that we so unwillingly purchased for them last year.

One idea I’ve come up with should guarantee you free food at the favourite restaurant of your choice no matter where you live though it may also cause you to lose the meal should the restaurateur call your bluff.

It’s a brilliant idea and though I admit I came up with it in Leamington Spa’s Café Rouge I don’t want that fact in any way to slight the marvellous menu that they offer there. It’s just that upon my last visit they sat me and the wife right in the window so that we felt we had a bit of an audience as we ate. The passersby of Leamington Spa shared every morsel with us. And it got me thinking. Seeing me orgiastically stuffing my fat little face with their production line French cuisine was undoubtedly great free advertising for the restaurant. Therefore the inverse should also be true: i.e. seeing me pull horrific faces or even throwing up into the window would surely turn potential customers away in droves.

So what better way to bargain (or blackmail if you want to get all technical) a free meal than by threatening to throw up into the window of the eatery you have chosen to patronize? Or even better, just outside the door whilst waving a copy of the restaurant’s menu in your greasy little fist for all to see?

“Please, Mr Restaurant Owner, waive the bill or I shall be forced to release the dogs of wauuuugh...!”

I mean what could they do? Refuse? You merely introduce a couple of fingers to the back of your throat (if you don’t fancy doing this yourself it might be handy to invite someone along who is bulimic). Call the police? Merely throw up and then complain of feeling unwell... mutter something about the food not being cooked properly or food poisoning. The thought of all that bad press will see them bending over backwards to offer you all the freebies they can muster (as well as mopping up your spew).

I guarantee they’ll rip up the bill just to keep you quiet and your mouth literally closed.

So there you have it. The perfect way to take your loved one out for a meal but without having to dent your plastic or your wallet. Who says being a cheapskate can’t be romantic?

Look out for more money saving ideas on this ‘ere blog coming soon. I shall publish them just as soon as the medication wears off and I think of them.

Manager Wanted: Apply Here

Whilst strutting back to work from my lunchbreak one day much in the manner of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever (only without the tin of paint) I came across an unexpected and rather fragrant piece of street theatre.

Though I’d like to think these boys were fresh from the Edinburgh Fringe I know for a fact they’ve not missed a single day of retching through the park gates for at least the last 3 months so I know they haven’t been as far north as Boots The Chemist let alone Scotland.

But there they were. 5 of them. A street drunk quintet all sitting on the steps of the KL Oriental Supermarket looking like a living, moving fly tip.

They’re a strange combo in terms of audience demographics but I can see they’re trying to cover all their potential bases. Their ages seem to range from mid 50’s down to early twenties. There was even a guy with a porkpie hat and a moustache who looked as if he’d been exhumed from the communal grave of 1960’s skiffle.

Now it’s not unusual to see one or other of these guys singing. Usually a bad Tom Jones (geddit?) or a raspy Shirley Bassey – occasionally a bit of Happy Mondays – but to see all of them performing as a single ensemble was quite frankly so jaw-droppingly amazing that I literally nearly dropped my... well... my jaw.

They were singing together. They were organized. They’d obviously rehearsed. Even worse / better one of them – the baby of the group (a 6 footer of around 25 but undoubtedly with the liver of a 65 year old French man) was attempting to provide percussion solely with his mouth. A human beat-box. Or in his case, a human beat-up-box.

Unfortunately he hadn’t quite mastered the art so all his spitting and raspberry blowing sounded less like a kick-drum and a snare and more like an elephant farting into a biscuit tin. With the addition that everyone in a 2ft radius of him was getting wet.

Best of all these guys weren’t singing into “air mics”. Oh no. Nothing so crass and amateurish. They were singing into their cans of Special Brew. Possibly this deepened the rich timbre that their vocal chords were producing and added a touch of reverb.

Anyway, I confess I had a Dick Rowe moment and briefly considered taking these boys on and seeing if I could steer them to fame and fortune. Or if not that then at least The X Factor (I’d love to see Simon Cowell getting rhythmically spat on) but what with my other commitments – Take That, Amy Winehouse and Jane McDonald – and a young family to raise I just don’t have the time or the energy to take on a boy band with so much genuine street cred and so many permanent health issues.

So I’m throwing it open to the blogging community. This could be your opportunity to get onto the ground level of the next big thing. A contact in Alcoholics Anonymous would be a plus as would a natural immunity to the combined odours of vomit and beer breath. A sponsorship deal with Heineken is already in the pipeline and A&E are expecting you.

Good luck.

Why Bunk Beds And Vomit Do Not Mix

Cleaning up vomit must be one of the worst jobs a parent has to undertake within the normal gamut of parental experience.

I have literally just hit the anti bacterial hand wash to try and rid myself of that horrible tangy, catch-you-in-the-back-of-the-throat odour that seems to hang around you for hours afterwards after you have come into intimate contact with kiddius vomitus.

Our eldest has just chundered / technicolour yawned his way down every step of his bunk bed. Great coughing hiccups of bile, slimy chicken, chocolate, pork scratchings, lemon tart and lasagna (don't ask; it's been a long day). Not his usual diet I have to say but we took ourselves off to Warwick this morning to sample both its restaurants and its Saturday market. This stomach eruption should in no way be seen as a gourmet review. It is, I hope, just a reaction to the day's rather rich eating.

Because as a parent, when one of your offspring decides to blow chunks, you inevitably experience that gnawing, nagging fear that the household has been hit by a stomach bug that is going to work it's way around every single one of you and see you, the parent, mopping up yet more vomit before the night is through whilst vomiting huge spicy carroty-bits yourself.

However, the little 'un seems fine. Sleeping soundly, breathing calm. Which is no mean feat in a room that smells like Jimi Hendrix's pillow.

I, however, feel very queasy but I am putting that down to my recent close encounter with my son's expelled stomach lining that I have just poured down the toilet.

Bunk beds, for those of you that are thinking of investing in them for your kids, are not great. Yes, they save you space, but (and I am speaking from past experience here) when both occupants are ill you inevitably end up with a sick sandwich. The double decker chunder if you will. Clearing up ground vomit whilst being rained upon by air launched vomit is not a great milestone in any parent's career.

Today's encounter with hot-vom has been mild in comparison.

I have scraped off the carpet. Rubbed down the bunk bed ladder. Polished the child proof gate that divides my youngest from the upper level of the bunk bed kingdom. I have done my best to check over all nearby toys for collateral splashing and vegetable soup staining.

All seems as clean as I can make it.

The room still smells like a bulimic's handbag but both boys are now breathing peacefully and are sound asleep.

I'm fervently praying for a dry morning.