oops

If you read my last post, you know that I played hooky from work on Friday. I had a half-legitimate excuse, in that I had jury duty. But after I was excused from jury duty at 10:30 a.m., I decided that I'd pretend for my office's sake that I'd been picked to serve on a jury that day, so that I'd have an excuse for not going into work the rest of the day. My boss had actually taken the day off Friday - she'd given notice in advance that she was going to take a leave day Friday; so when I called the office around lunchtime to use my "damn, I got picked today" jury excuse, I spoke to our paralegal, who said she'd take care of anything that came up while I was out.

Having given the excuse of being picked for a jury, of course I had to come up with some basic details about the case that I supposedly served on, knowing that my boss would know I hadn't come in to work Friday and that she would ask about the case I'd said I'd been picked for. I thought up a short and sweet story while I was showering this morning, and crossed my fingers that she wouldn't ask too many extra questions. My biggest fear was that she'd ask something that seems pretty innocuous about the case or the experience of serving on the jury, and that I wouldn't be able to come up with a sensible answer fast enough that fit my story, and that I'd be caught. My plan was to distract her with another topic as soon as I'd given my few basic lies, thinking that I could satisfy any curiosity she might have and then quickly make her forget about it.

So I went into work this morning, and of course, my boss came into my office within the first 15 minutes I was there and asked how jury duty went. She'd heard I'd been picked. So I fed her my made-up details about the case with what I hoped was a look of sincerity. Then I prepared myself to quickly change the subjects.

But that's when my boss surprised me. She'd caught on to the hooky-playing.

Oh, but here's the best part: not MY hooky-playing. Oh no; it turns out that on Friday afternoon, after I'd called in with the news that I wouldn't be in the rest of the day as I fulfilled my civic duty, my paralegal decided to take advantage of my boss and I both being out of the office, and she snuck out without telling anyone. And went shopping. Only to run into my boss, who happened to be shopping at the same store Friday afternoon, and who was surprised to see our paralegal browsing and choosing clothes to try on, since our paralegal was supposed to be working all day. My boss said that when she called out our paralegal's name in the store, she looked up, looked shocked for a couple seconds at seeing our boss, and then said "oops ... busted."

It's kind of funny. On the one hand, I'm kind of sympathetic to our paralegal; I kind of want to defend her for playing hooky on a Friday afternoon when none of her direct supervisors were in the office, to say it's not a big deal - and I kind of want to also take her aside and say to her, hey, if you're gonna play hooky, don't risk the chance, small as it may have seemed at the time, that you'd run into anyone from the office who had the day off legitimately while doing your shopping or what have you; find something else to do instead. On the other hand, I'm kind of thankful that our paralegal had the bad luck to get busted like that by our boss out shopping on Friday; after all, it did totally distract my boss from asking any more questions about my own excuse for playing hooky on Friday. And like a smart hooky-player, I didn't go out shopping in town where I might potentially run into my boss; I played it smart, stayed at home and got drunk off my ass for no good reason. Yep, smart.