How do I call in sick? Let me count the ways....

Of all the ordinary things one must face once in awhile, the one I hate the most is calling in sick to work.

I mean, there is a bit of an art to conveying how bad you feel without either disclosing too much detail (TMI) or sounding like you are just faking it. And it also depends on how well you know your boss. And lately, we've been changing bosses like socks at work, so I keep having to break in a new one...

For the most part, I'm a pretty healthy gal (although due to my horrid eating habits and whacked out personality I'm not sure how much longer it'll last...) but every now and then, I go down for the count. Generally I barrel along at a pretty intense pace, and even sometimes when I don't feel good, I just scarf an extra donut and Amp, several Tylenol, and my Adderall and "voila" - all better... Or I just tend to ignore the fact that I have snot running down my face and stick a fancy SNIFF tissue up there and declare it a fashion statement.

Anyway, I woke up Wednesday with a burning sensation in my stomach and a raging headache. I KNOW the offending catalyst for this condition HAD to be that taco salad I ate at my mother-in-law's the night before, and it had pretty much royally pissed off my persnickity diva of a gallbladder. Plus, I missed my meds the day the before because I was too lazy to go to the drugstore so I had a king sized migraine, and now every cell in my body was starting to ramp up into hyper state again. You'd be surprised, the Adderall calms EVERYTHING down, not just my hyper-drive OCD issues.

This equation results in the following:

pounding head + gastrointestinal distress = ain't coming into work I need a dark room very near a potty

So how do you summarize this to a new boss in a sentence or less?

I could go the TMI route:

Hi! I didn't take my Adderall yesterday so now my system is a wreck and I ate Taco salad to boot so now I'm two steps away from having a colon blowout and I need to take a bottle of Tylenol since my head hurts from missing the meds as well??

Or just leave it short and simple:

Hi, I don't feel well. See ya.

What I actually compromised on:

Hi, My stomach is torn up and I have a migraine. I'm not going to be available today. Bye.

****

I remember I got a rash a couple of years back, that started on my hips and spread juuuuusttt to the top of my knees and juuuuuusstttt up to my breasts. It was the most horrible thing ever, they called it "follicular mucinosis" and it drove me to the point of almost suicidal behaviour. I had to see 5 doctors and a nutritionist for it and I was diagnosed with everything from nerves to t-cell lymphoma (I'm not kidding on that either.) Oh, and the nutritionist was the one who actually cleared it up btw. When they finally stopped the itching I was black and blue and in pain from all the clawing I had done to myself! Yet, aside from all the doctor's notes, the crying and screaming etc. To the outside world, I looked perfectly NORMAL.

I had to call in sick for two weeks for a rash no one could see. And I hated having to explain to my male boss that I was swollen and prickly and scabby from the tops of my knees to my chest. He made an art form of looking at me like "yeah. right. whatever."

****

Is it just me? What do you do?

:o)