The title may be an over-reach.
But can you blame me for hoping it's the best note I'll ever write? I shudder to think of the confluence of circumstances which could inspire me to a better one.
I quote my recent email to Meridian Charter School:
Daniel Berry was absent Tuesday, September 6th because of family drama: first our house almost burned down, and then I had a baby.
I didn't write his excuse note sooner because I was dealing with aforesaid drama: first managing a mandatory evacuation (and the threat of my house burning down); then going into labor at a friend's house, more than two weeks early, in the middle of the night; and then "artfully navigating" the insane hospital bureaucracy which a) lectures a new mom about getting uninterrupted sleep to avoid post-partum depression, then b) invades her room at 4 a.m. to draw her blood, and then c) sends in a social worker to screen for post-partum depression when d) she's caught napping indolently a few hours later.
The house and the entire family are fine, but I bet you will rarely receive a better absence excuse note.
Respectfully,
Gail Homer Berry
I hope that the school staff will be merciful. If not, I will explain that in the 60 hours prior to composing that note, I had slept a fragmented aggregate of perhaps 8, besides giving birth and exercising marvelous self-restraint at the legions of hospital staff who had impinged upon my privacy at regular half-hour intervals.
For more rantings about insane hospital procedures, read this entry about trying to escape with Sammy.
For people wishing more details, I can only say I'm working on a much longer blog post, but, alas, I keep getting interrupted by over-zealous hospital staff.
I'll write my blog-posting excuse note tomorrow. Assuming I'm coherent tomorrow, and not experiencing sleep deprivation-induced hallucinations.
A final note: I'm sure there are better excuse notes out there. I will give a prize to the person who sends me the best one. But: It has to be true. I could write a perfectly lovely fictionalized note, but that would be cheating. (I may have exaggerated slightly, but the substance was real.)
5 comments:
Haha, that's certainly the silver lining of the whole set of events! I'm glad everything turned out alright in the end. Good luck with bureaucracy.
That attendance note is so good, you could not only get that absence excused, but also one "get out of school free" card for the future.
Congrats on giving birth AND on your house not burning down. I can't wait for the details... I would have loved to see the attendance secretary's face as she read your email! Hope you and baby are doing well.
Life gets crazy sometimes and I'm so happy that you are able to laugh with it and keep on going.
Yes it is.
Don't you think you might have gone a little too far this time in creating an exciting story? Maybe next time we could settle for something simple. How about a near miss with a train or having to jump a flooded ravine with the car on the way to the hospital? I think I'm all excited out for a little while.
Or better yet, why can't you have a boring delivery just once? Maybe skip the whole morning sickness thing, forget the blood sugar and swelling issues, and then wake me up quietly in the middle of the night to say you're in labor. We could wake whoever is visiting and ask them to babysit while we make the 10-minute drive to the hospital where you are admitted. We then spend a couple of hours lounging around doing Kukuro's while we wait for the big finale. Two days later, you come home with the baby and find that the rest of the children were all perfect angels and cleaned the house from top to bottom and your husband has dinner ready on the stove. Oh, and the nurses only come into your room after knocking and waiting for a "Come in", and only do so when summoned.
Now there's a story.
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