Sick Week
A few weeks ago (probably the same week as the events in this post happened), my principal told another teacher and me that he was probably going to have to call school off for the next day since we were almost down to 86% of total school-wide attendance due to illness. Apparently when 14% of the student population is out sick, you get a free day. “Why 86%?” I asked him. “Isn’t that kind of a random number?” “What would you prefer to make it?” he asked me. “I don’t know.” I shrugged. It was about 1 PM and I felt great. I never get sick. So the prospect of sipping a celebratory whiskey barrel-aged beer that evening in anticipation of an unexpected day off sounded pretty darn good. “99%?” He rolled his eyes and walked away, the voices of the other teacher and me trailing behind him as we volunteered to keep our own kids—who attend the school in which we teach—home the next day in order to fudge the numbers a little bit and earn that reward day off. It reminded me of the time a