My dog ate my paycheck

I finally managed to catch one of the colds that have been floating around the Bay Area. I'm not sure if I got the one that turns into bronchitis, the one that turns into a sinus infection, or the one that just does what it damn well pleases for a really long time. But suffice it to say, where respiratory ailments are concerned, when I fall, I fall hard.

This morning I really did not want to go to work. I felt like crap, my voice is about half an octave lower than usual (and my job is all about talking), and on Mondays I have to walk up to 6 miles to get from place to place during the day. What with my weird cough, I was especially dreading the walking.

But I knew my name would be mud if I did not go in this morning, for Monday is quite possibly the most important day of my three-day work week. And with next Monday being a holiday, I perceived even less of a choice in the matter.

Of course, under normal circumstances, respiratory infections are perfectly reasonable excuses for staying home from work. Especially when one's job is all about talking. Heartburn, however, is not grounds for going home, even when one works in food service at Sesame Place right after one graduates from high school. Which I did [work there; it was a lousy job] and wasn't able to do [get sent home on account of heartburn; which I got, no joke, from the grilled cheese they served me on break].

On my grumbly way in this morning, I started to wonder whether anyone's tried any of the following, and to what degree of success:

"I woke up really stiff this morning. I think it's my rigor mortis again."

"My hip dysplasia is flaring up."

"I don't want to give anyone else in the office my case of FMD."

"My mother was in town this weekend; I think I caught parapraxis from her."

"My car's in the shop--my goniometer is broken."

In related news, as I was preparing this particular entry, I came upon these beauties of sponsored links on Google: