This Sounds Like a Lie But It's Not

A Story by damnpamn

We all call in sick to work sometimes when all that is wrong is a touch of spring fever. Most people just call in sick with a little extra effort to sound stuffy and/or miserable. Then we get that mighty cure called a day in the spring sunshine. It doesn't take much to uplift the soul and if you are earning minimum wage it is well worth the money you miss out on to take advantage of a glorious day.

I had to call in sick once with an excuse so implausible that even my boss said there was no way I could make it up....and I wasn't. All 3 times I used it when I had to call in. In fact I was highly irritated that I had to use valuable sick days on something so stupid.

I had to tell my boss that I couldn't come to work because there was a trailer blocking my road. I don't mean a tow dolly type trailer or even a little van that workers use to pull their tools around. I mean a small house trailer that people live in. At least I hope somebody was living in that stupid trailer but I'm not really sure.

I was living up a hollow in West Virginia. I was working on building my very own 35 acre farm full of all the animals that I always dreamed of having. But to fund this farm I had 3 jobs and I had to drive an hour each way to get to any of them. The last quarter of a mile was a dirt road that you had to actually drive across a creek to get to it. I don't mean you drove on a bridge over the creek..you drove THROUGH the creek.

There were a couple of families that lived on that last little stretch of road before you got to my house at the end of the hollow. The family closest to me was a quiet family that you never heard from. That was not the case with the first family that lived right beside the creek. This family liked to party. They liked to party with all the good ole boys on the hollow before you got to our little piece of the pie. So I would drive by and wave as I went to and from work while they were kicked back having a good time or doing whatever piece of meanness that a bunch of drunks in a hollow in WV can cook up on a Saturday night.

One day I left my house and there, right smack dab in the middle of the road was a trailer. All the guys were gathered around and I knew there was a problem as it was sitting kind of lopsided in the road. It turns out that they had decided to move the trailer from one guys house a couple of miles down the road to the house that was at the mouth of my hollow. The trailer had bottomed out. One end was up on the main road blocking it. The other end was buried in the dirt of the road on the other side of the creek. And by the look of things it was wedged in there good while all the drunks were gathered around trying to figure out how to get out of this predicament.

When they saw me they gave a friendly wave and my neighbor came over to tell me he was sorry but it was going to take some time to get the trailer out of the road. He didn't really know how long it was going to take either. I told him I needed to get to work and he just kind of mumbled an "I"m sorry" and turned away telling me they would get it out as quick as they could.

I had to go home and call my boss. I told him I might just be late for work but from the look of things I really didn't think they were going to get the trailer out of the way any time soon. I worked night shift. I was supposed to be there around 9 or 10 (I can't remember now) and I left between 6 and 7 in the morning. The last time I checked at midnight the trailer was still there. They did have it moved the next day though. Fortunately my boss thought it was funny and so did I and I put the time to good use at my house.

It wasn't so funny though when I had to call him 2 more times over the next few months because the good ole boys decided to move the trailer again. The second time they put it back where it was to start with. Then the 3rd. time they moved it back by my neighbors again. All 3 times was on a Saturday night. All 3 times they were all drunk and decided they needed to move the trailer.

And that was the craziest story I ever told when I called in sick to work. Not one word of it was a lie.