Strangest Excuse Ever…

What is the strangest excuse ever heard by a parent for a child not wanting to go to school? When has it been so outrageous that you had to laugh and then tell them they were going to school anyway?

I think that my personal favorite one was written by Shel Silverstein. It is a poem called ‘Sick’.

Sick

Shel Silverstein, 1930 – 1999

“I cannot go to school today,”

Said little Peggy Ann McKay.

“I have the measles and the mumps,

A gash, a rash and purple bumps.

My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,

I’m going blind in my right eye.

My tonsils are as big as rocks,

I’ve counted sixteen chicken pox

And there’s one more—that’s seventeen,

And don’t you think my face looks green?

My leg is cut—my eyes are blue—

It might be instamatic flu.

I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,

I’m sure that my left leg is broke—

My hip hurts when I move my chin,

My belly button’s caving in,

My back is wrenched, my ankle’s sprained,

My ‘pendix pains each time it rains.

My nose is cold, my toes are numb.

I have a sliver in my thumb.

My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,

I hardly whisper when I speak.

My tongue is filling up my mouth,

I think my hair is falling out.

My elbow’s bent, my spine ain’t straight,

My temperature is one-o-eight.

My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,

There is a hole inside my ear.

I have a hangnail, and my heart is—what?

What’s that? What’s that you say?

You say today is. . .Saturday?

G’bye, I’m going out to play!”¹

This is one of the wild and fun ones that my mom got me interested in when I got his book as a preteen person. Shel Silverstein could make me laugh about almost anything. I still to this day remember to take my garbage out thanks to a poem that he wrote.

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout

Would not take the garbage out!

She’d scour the pots and scrape the pans,

Candy the yams and spice the hams,

And though her daddy would scream and shout.

She simply would not take the grabage out.

And so it piled up to the ceilings;

Coffee grouns and potato peelings,

Brown bananas, rotten peas,

Chunks of sour cottage cheese.

It filled the can, it covered the floor,

It cracked the window and blocked the door

With bacon rinds and chicken bones,

Drippy ends of ice cream cones,

Prune pits, peach pits, orange peel,

Gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal,

Pizza crusts and withered greens,

Soggy beans and tangerines,

Crusts of black burned buttered toast,

Gristly bits of beffy roasts…

The garbage rolled on down the hall,

It raised the roof, it broke the wall…

Greasy napkins, cookie crumbs,

Globs of gooey bubble gum,

Cellpohane from green baloney,

Rubbery blubbery macaroni,

Peanut butter, caked and dry,

Curdled milk and crusts of pie,

Moldy melons, dried-up mustard,

Eggshells mixed with lemon custard,

Cold french fries and rancid meat,

Yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat.

At last the grabage reached so high

That finally it touched the sky.

And all of the neighbors moved away,

And none of her friends would come to play.

And finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said,

‘OK, I’ll take the garbage out! ‘

But then of course it was too late…

The garbage reached across the state,

From New York to the Golden Gate.

And there, in the garbage she did hate,

Poor Sarah met an awful fate,

That I cannot right now relate

Because the hour is much too late.

But children, remember Sarah Stout

And always take the garbage out! ²

1} https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/sick

2} https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sarah-cynthia-sylvia-stout-would-not-take-the-garbage-out/