Not Ferris Bueller's Day Off

I've been feeling a little under the weather these past few days. It's partly exhaustion, brought on by not getting to sleep before one and getting up between half six and seven; it's partly worry, brought on by the fact that I got the day my rent is due very wrong indeed and had to dash to the bank at the eleventh hour to pay up and am currently living in (pretty much irrational) fear that my current landlord will do a Lord Farquaad on it and turf me out for having been a little late with the payment; and it's partly the fact that my diet is abysmal and I'm not eating well at all. All of these factors have bandied together over the last three days to cause me to be even more keyed up and emotional than usual, and to produce some fine splitting headaches and general aches and pains.

At lunch on Monday, I had virtually no appetite and pushed my food around my plate while the others ate and chatted to each other. Since the colossal fiasco that was having to vacate my first apartment the other women in the office think of me as a sort of lost lamb and as being in need of constant reassurance, encouragement and attention, and I can barely bat an eyelid without one of them enquiring as to how I am and how I'm feeling and assuring me that I can always ask one of them if there's ever something I don't understand or am worried about. It's very endearing and while I genuinely do appreciate their kindness, it got wildly out of hand at the start of the week, beginning with one of them noticing that I wasn't eating a whole lot at lunch.

"No, I usually do like to eat vegetables, but I'm feeling a little out of sorts today", I explained. Next thing I knew, choruses of "you poor thing!" and "oh dear Aisling, what exactly is the matter? Is it your stomach? Do you have a cold? What about a fever, are you warm?" were echoing from all ends of the table.

"Oh, I just have a headache and a general funny feeling, but really, I'm fine" did no good and then came the worried and compassionate suggestions that I should take the rest of the afternoon off and head home to bed. Realising that resistance was futile, I traipsed off to my boss's office to inform him of my malaise and my need to leave early. Equally kind and understanding, he cleared it and explained that because I was clocking out early on the grounds of illness there would be no need for me to make up the lost hours later on during the week. "Don't worry", he told me. "You can stay at home until you feel healthy again. Just call in the morning to let me know should you take the day off."

So I left work at about 1pm with a mere headache and mixed emotions. Guilt, because there really wasn't much wrong with me and it was nothing Panadol and a decent night's shut-eye couldn't cure, and delight, because I now had several extra hours of delicious, delicious free time on my hands.

I returned to the office as normal the following morning, where the usual friendly and concerned faces greeted me. For appearance's sake, I explained that I still felt out of sorts but refreshed after my afternoon off. But God forbid they leave it at that. Did I know that there was an in-house doctor, whom I could visit between the hours of nine and one, free of charge? No, I didn't, but I wasn't long finding out when one of them insisted on taking me to him. Knowing that I had to exaggerate my symptoms a little to the doctor in order to make the visit seem worthwhile and to make me not seem like a complete hypochondriac, I found myself fabricating an all over body ache, chills, constant thirst and frequent need to pee. I had to backtrack quickly when I realised that I was dangerously close to describing the symptoms of diabetes, not wanting to end up in the local Krankenhaus for blood tests. Fortunately, he didn't arrive at this conclusion and instead gave me some effervescent aspirin tablets to relieve me of my ailments. He prepared an aspirinny drink for me there and then so I had to drink it out of politeness, although I more than likely would have survived without resorting to analgesics.

I returned to the office to find an absolute looker (pathetic choice of word but it makes me cringe decidedly less than "babe" or "hottie") of an IT technician at my desk installing new software to my computer. About twenty-one or -two years old, with a fine mop of sandy brown hair and an open, friendly face. Unfortunately, the concerned co-worker who ushered me to the in-house doctor chose then as the ideal time to discuss the possibility of homesickness or general loneliness causing my supposed ill feeling, virtually dashing all chances of me looking cool in front of the IT eye candy. 

Unless I'm experiencing a stroke or coughing up blood, the next time I feel unwell at work I think I'll just keep schtum. 

A bit of aspirin for no reason never hurt anyone, sure it didn't?