{"id":3857,"date":"2017-06-05T07:54:51","date_gmt":"2017-06-05T05:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=3857"},"modified":"2018-10-29T08:55:19","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T07:55:19","slug":"my-argue-proof-excuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=3857","title":{"rendered":"My Argue-Proof Excuse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A friend of mine visits Prague every half year or so. About two months before she visits, she contacts me, thus setting into motion a recurring series of events.<\/p>\n

We need to meet. Sure. When? What would you like to do? We\u2019ll sort it out when I get to Prague. Maybe this one afternoon. Sure. Oh wait, maybe this one? OK, I can do that. It\u2019s hard to organize time. Whenever you want to meet is OK. I’m so difficult, I know I do this all the time! It’s OK. Oh no, I can\u2019t meet, my son has [add physical ailment here].<\/em><\/p>\n

Flu. Fever. Shingles. Cold. Earache. Such a plague of physical infirmities attack this kid every time he comes to Prague, that if I were him, I wouldn\u2019t visit.<\/p>\n

We all have our go to excuse. Stuck at work. Too busy. Not feeling well. Self prostate exam. And in this day and age of the acceptable blow off, we sort of allow people to back out of stuff with little hoopla. We may even expect them to do so. So while there may be a bit of inherent disbelief in employed excuses, nobody can argue with a child-based excuse.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong. I have a lot of friends with kids and I understand that kids get sick all the time. They\u2019re essentially walking pietrie dishes. Moreover, I certainly do not underestimate the seriousness of a sick child. But kids are the perfect excuse. Who in their right mind can argue against \u201cmy child is sick?\u201d Nobody.<\/p>\n

I know your lives are hard and tiring, up all night, overwhelming pressure and responsibility. However, one of the fringe benefits of your child is that you have an excuse nobody can argue with. You have an argue-proof excuse. The Golden Chalice of emergency escape plans. If all else fails, pull cord here to see which slightly-more-than-moderately worrying ailment your child has today.<\/em> No doubt some of you take advantage of that, and by the by, I would. Even if we don’t believe the veracity of your claim, there\u2019s nothing we can say. We raise an eyebrow, say “OK,” and wonder what “not feeling well” really means or how many flus one kid can get in one year before turning into a spore. Sure, I can always back out of a meeting, but when I do so by saying I\u2019m tired, I look like a lazy git. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m jealous.<\/p>\n

Starting this week, I will use my cat as an excuse as though she\u2019s my kid. So the next time my boss asks if I can do a project, I\u2019ll tell her that I have to get home to a sick cat. I\u2019ll cancel drinks because my cat has a cold. Sorry man, I have to cancel, I\u2019m exhausted: I was up all night with a sick cat. My cat will come into use for orthodontist appointments, toothaches, and earaches. She will be my argue-proof excuse. And even if people don\u2019t believe me, I bet I can get out of a lot of stuff be being a crazy cat guy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend of mine visits Prague every half year or so. About two months before she visits, she contacts me, thus setting into motion a recurring series of events. We need to meet. Sure. When? What would you like to do? We\u2019ll sort it out when I get to Prague. Maybe this one afternoon. Sure. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-10d","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3857"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3861,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857\/revisions\/3861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}