I think death is knocking on my bedroom door ready to put me out of my snotty misery, but it’s only my father with a cup of tea and a thermometer to take my temperature.
I have a flair for the dramatic and cough loudly. I want to call out sick from my part-time weekend job, but I am in no condition for responsibility. I’m too impossibly weak to lift the telephone receiver to call my boss and tell him I won’t be able to come into work on this Saturday. I find mighty tears that spring from a distant oasis and beg my dad to make the call for me.
I sheepishly tuck my head under the covers because I am a teenager with enough years under my belt to be slightly ashamed with my behavior. I lay with my confusing feelings of relief and embarrassment and vow to be an adult another day.
Thirty years later, when my own teenage child comes creeping down the hall one early Saturday morning sounding like he’s in the clutches of the common cold, I already know he will not be going into his part-time weekend job this Saturday. I pause before meeting him outside my bedroom door and remember all those years ago when my dad did my dirty work and called out sick for me.
After all this time, I still didn’t understand why my father missed the opportunity to teach me how to appropriately talk to my boss and help me advocate for my needs. His usual no-nonsense manner was too easily swayed by my masterful performance or maybe I simply caught him in a moment of parental weakness. Either way, my mind likes to replay the day often. I take a deep breath and then open the bedroom door to meet my sick son in the hallway.
He has a band of sweat on his brow. He’s all weary and weak and looks unusually jagged. Are those tears in the corners of his eyes? I can’t be sure, but I think I understand what my father must have felt all those years ago. My primal instinct as his parent is to take away immediate aches and pains, including the agonizing emotional ones that come with being a teenager with responsibilities he will need to navigate in the adult world.
Instead, I vow not to repeat my father’s well-intentioned, teddy-bear moment because I still misattribute calling out sick with feelings that make me want to hide my head under the covers in disgrace. Calling out sick is not a sign of weakness, a lack of dependability, or wholly irresponsible but there’s a part of me that believes it is anyway.
The guilt hangs on me like a bag with a broken shoulder strap and every now and again, when I must call out sick myself, those skewed feelings fall out all over the place. I don’t want my son to have to carry around an awkward bag into adulthood like I have done.
As my son and I sit together in the dark on the top of our staircase this early Saturday morning, I try to keep my own feelings in check. He coughs and clucks and struggles with the uncomfortable lesson ahead. I can see he’s nervous. He waits and debates until there is no time left.
I help him craft a simple, authentic message to his boss. I cringe at the way he chooses to communicate through text messaging, and for the umpteenth time, my son reminds me this is the preferred way the labor force communicates nowadays. We get off topic until I spectacularly steer us back to the task at hand. I coach him on how to step into his responsibility by speaking the truth.
I could have simply called his boss myself and saved us both my over-the-top theatrics and even more time. But I didn’t. I couldn’t let myself take the easy way out again. As the alternative, I shared my story of sickness from long ago and even admitted I was almost twenty years old at the time! The teenager still living inside of me finally needed to pull back the covers and teach us both how to perform a task no one on this planet enjoys doing, no matter the age of the individual calling out sick from work.
Andrea Chacos lives in Colorado, dodging life’s curveballs with a bit of passion, humor and some flair. She can be reached at www.andreachacos.com