Catch a Chronic Illness

If you don’t have a chronic illness, I suggest you find one, grab hold of it, and hand over control. Life is much simpler when you have something legitimate to blame.

1. If you feel like cutting out of work early, your illness is the best excuse to walk out in the middle of your shift, head held low in shame.
2. If you wake up in the morning in so much pain that you cannot move, you can have your spouse call in for you; then you’ll have the whole day free to hurt in peace.
3. When you decide your place of employment expects too much of you, you can apply for intermittent leave; if you’re approved, you’ll have as many days off a week as you want to cry, and question your value as a productive member of society.
4. When you realize a life of leisure is better than punching a time clock, quit your job; questioning your value as a member of your family is only a small side-effect of giving up your job/career/income. Money…who needs it? Fulfillment…that’s what Netflix is for.
5. Did you make plans with your friends, then decide you aren’t well enough to even shower and dress in grown up clothes? Chronic Illness will get you out of that dinner you’ve been looking forward to.
6. Your daughter is playing her last band concert as a senior in high school? The chronic pain will excuse you from attending. You were never proud of her, anyway.
7. Don’t feel like fucking your husband? Chronic pain.
8. Don’t feel like grocery shopping? Or cooking a meal for your family? Chronic pain.
9. Travelling to Grandma’s for Christmas is going to be a drag? Chronic pain.
10. Too lazy to tie your own fucking shoes???

The benefits are limitless. Yes, you’ll have to explain yourself to your friends and family who are too goddamned ignorant or uncaring to understand. But fuck them. This is about you. Everything is about you, as it should be. Because you’re special–too goddamned good. This is your life, after all.