Yesterday, I took my first sick day of 2004. I had a slight fever, and every exhale launched tiny goblets of phlegm into the air like viral confetti. I’d hacked my way through a Monday meeting—almost certainly aerosolizing the entire conference room—before finally admitting defeat and surrendering to the couch.
I don’t like taking sick days. Two years ago, my company “generously” abolished the official sick day policy. Now we’re allowed to take time off “whenever necessary.” Which sounds progressive, but is actually a masterclass in corporate mind games. When you have five sick days in the bank, you feel entitled to use them. But when the pool is bottomless, any absence feels like theft. You’re not protecting your coworkers from a virus—you’re a dishonorable slacker who left the team hanging to drink DayQuil in your pajamas.
Still. I was sick and sounded contagious. So I stayed home. And like many the mildly ill before me, I did the only reasonable thing: I marinated in daytime television.
First up: CJ (Celebrity Justice). An entire show devoted to the legal woes of the famous. It was an endless parade of courtroom disasters and washed-up tabloid drama. A Barker Beauty suing Bob. Survivor (the band) suing Survivor (the show). Phil Spector calling prosecutors “fascists.” R. Kelly dodging charges. Janet Jackson getting invoiced for the FCC fine. I lost track after the fourth D-list scandal, but suffice it to say: everyone is suing everyone, and no one is paying child support.
Next, I stumbled into The Larry Elder Show, which I’d never heard of but briefly mistook for early-’90s Montel before it took a hard turn into trauma-porn. Larry’s guest was a mom worried about her 17-year-old daughter. Within 120 seconds, he was asking the girl, “How many men have you had sex with?”—which somehow wasn’t the most upsetting part. That honor goes to her mother screaming, “She’s destroyed her life! Whore! Whore!” at full volume. Larry nodded gravely, as if he’d done something noble. I fled.
Maury Povich offered no reprieve. He looks ten years younger than he did ten years ago, which is disorienting. That day’s episode: “I’m Sorry… Our Disabled Son May Not Be Yours! Pt. 2.” Within seven minutes, Maury was delivering a DNA test. I know it’s a cliché to say Maury does a lot of DNA tests, but Jesus—we were mid-paternity by the first commercial break. There was yelling. Crying. Collapsing into stage-side cushions. By the end, even the cameraman seemed winded.
At that point, I turned to CNN, hoping for dignity. What I got was a soft-focus montage of hurricane damage and Tony Blair pressers. Apparently, mid-day CNN is just Lifetime for people who also like graphs. I dozed off and woke up to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen on screen, which reminded me: American women allegedly find Tony Blair sexy. I do not. But Rasmussen? Strange, stern allure. Would hit.
Then, finally, Court TV delivered local flavor. The Alexander Pring-Wilson murder trial was airing live—from a courthouse roughly 1,000 feet from my apartment. Despite the proximity, it was stunningly dull. I turned it off.
At some point, I made soup, coughed like a Dickens orphan, studied GRE algebra, and gradually returned to life.
Doing algebra on a sick day? Wild. Ten years ago, I would’ve spent the afternoon writing Dawson’s Creek fanfiction and calling it literature.
