I am sick today but the humor must go on. I write this post wrapped in a blanket and sipping on tea. Some days, when I’m not sick, I imagine how fun it would be to stay home from work wrapped in a blanket and sipping on tea. However, now that I am sick, I rather not be ill even if that means going to work. My head is spinning, my voice is gone, and I can barely concentrate. I am pretty much out it so if there are a lot of speling and grammatically errors, I apologize.

I find it funny that I sometimes fantasize about being sick so I can stay home. In America, we need to be sick to take the day off work. In fact, I started my job in June 2010 and this is the first day I’ve ever called into work. Most Americans are groomed to dedicate ridiculous amounts of time to their jobs. My wife recently listened to a Rick Steves podcast that was taking about how Europe has one month of vacation time a year. Whereas most Americans don’t vacation and if they do, there is a certain amount of guilt.

Take my dad for instance. We went to my birth city of Chicago two weekends ago for a funeral. He had to adjust his whole schedule and work on the prior weekend to make sure he could go. I think there is a problem with that. When did work start overriding family concerns?

There is really only one way to fix a problem like this. Lick the subway tiles. Who needs to occupy wall street when there are plenty of un-licked subway tiles? If we all get ourselves sick and call into work, that will really send a message to those corporate labor profiteers. The message will go something like this:

Employee: Dear boss, I can’t come into work today because I was stupid enough to lick a subway tile and was inflicted with Ebola. In fact, I don’t think I will be back ever. So please give my favorite pen to Martha and tell Bob to take a dumb on your desk for me. PS: The color for our plastic Tupperware line should be not be called Seaweed Chunk because people do not want to put their leftovers in Seaweed Chunk. It should be called Think Green to make it sound environmentally friendly.  Even though the petroleum we use to make the product is about as environmentally friendly as starting a grease fire with seal fat in a rain forest, people will just blindly assume our company is Green because we called it Think Green. Oh god, a blood vessel burst…

So let’s take back our sick time and vacation days. The next time you see a guy licking the subway tiles, pat him on the back. Tell him you appreciate what he is doing for America. Then sterilize your hand. After all, you can’t really afford to get sick. That big project is coming up.  They can’t really complete it without you. Besides, you’ll take some time off for the upcoming holidays. Oh, but then there is the new Holiday product line. Maybe that hard earned vacation will have to be put off.