The Power of a Good Excuse
Welcome back honey!A while ago I learned a very important lesson that changed my life forever. I work as a waitress at a major franchise restaurant (similar to Chilli’s or TGI Fridays) and I usually work the dinner shift. Unfortunately, I also go to school during the day, which leaves me with almost no time to get from class to work. I usually show up at work very hungry and left with like no time to have a snack.
So this one evening I made it to work with a whopping 2 minutes to spare. Since I had the extra time, I decided to munch on some of the tortilla chips we serve to customers. Our chips are SUPER salty and I usually need to have some salsa on them so I don’t die of dehydration. We offer a mild salsa and a hot salsa. They can be told apart by the color of their containers; Mild salsa goes in the yellow container and Hot salsa goes in the red container. Some jerk must have mixed up the containers because I had some salsa from a yellow container and it nearly disintegrated my tongue! My eyes started to water up so much you’d think I Oprah had just given me a brand new house.
I scrambled for glass of water but, finding no such refreshment, I was forced to scarf down a few more handfuls of chips to try to put out the raging inferno in my mouth. I guess one chip went down the wrong pipe because pretty soon I was having a major coughing fit. So there I am: hunched over next to the time clock, heat-induced tears streaming down my face, coughing like a cat with a 2-ton hairball in it’s throat.
It’s right about this time that my manager walks by. He see’s me like this and tells me I’m crazy if I think he’s going to let me work when I’m this sick. Before I could explain that I was simply suffering a tortilla chip induced seizure, he practically pushes me out the door and I’m back in my car before I know it.
Drinking a bottle of water I found buried in the back seat of my car, I was finally able to stop coughing and crying. As I sat there and replayed the event in my head, I realized how incredibly powerful an excuse can be. Because of a simple cough and some watery eyes, I now had the entire Friday night to do whatever I wanted. I ended up being “sick” for the entire weekend and when I came back to work on Tuesday, people all told me how much they had missed me and were glad I was feeling better.
Some people may say that pretending to be sick to get out of work (or school, or anything) is dishonest, but I like to think of it as an “instant-gratification micro-vacation”. I think it’s more dishonest of society be expected to work 40 hours a week, week after week, year after year only to get 14 days of vacation time . Or be forced to attend school for an average of nearly 10 months, only getting a 9 lousy weeks for a summer break. By leveraging the awesome power of excuses, we can all craft our destinies to be what we want, when we want!
I will be updating this blog daily with new excuses for your everyday life. These excuses are practically guaranteed to get you out of just about any possible 
situation that may come up. From “excuses to leave school early” to “excuses for getting out of a speeding ticket” and everything in between, you’ll find it here at A Good Excuse Blog. Best of all, I can vouch for each excuse’s effectiveness because I have personally used just about every one of them successfully. If you have a particular excuse you’re looking for, feel free to email me at ExcuseGal@AGoodExcuse.org . Until tomorrow y’all!
