Elliott Begins: Do you remember staying home from school when you were a kid? You may have been sick. You might not have been. But you remember the feeling, don't you? When you were young enough to still be taken care of by your parents. When they got your medicine and made sure you took it. When they gave you comfort food and Sprite. That's what I mean. The early morning segment was always dreamy. Maybe I slept a little, on and off, while keeping a sleepy eye on Mighty Mouse. But I always caught the "Bozo Show" that featured the fan favorite "Grand Prize Game" where a kid pitched ping pong balls into buckets for, what seemed to me like, piles of treasure and gifts. I always wished that I could get on that damn show and put the ping pong ball in every bucket with ease.
Let's see, I vividly remember game shows being on the television in the mid-morning period, when you still felt like you had a million days off from school. I also remember the unpleasant interruptions from the news and then, inevitably, the dreaded soap opera. Uggghhhh!! That meant two things to me: 1) it would be a few hours till a sit-com of some sort - perhaps, Too Close For Comfort! - and 2) that I had, what seemed, about 5 minutes until school started. Oh yes, I always stumbled upon Gomer Pyle, USMC at the most inopportune times. The late afternoon usually featured cartoons or action shows. Perhaps CHiPs or Johnny Quest....
Ok, you get the idea. Using the magic of Google, I am going to give various people collaborative access to this document. Each person will read and add to the document. We can also share editorial thoughts about the document as it develops. Don't want to say too much more. Let's just go with it, shall we?
Peter Adds:
Staying home sick from school always felt surreal. Even though the living room couch was the exact same couch I always lounge on and watch television shows, it just felt really different. Probably because it was loaded down with blankets and pillows and had a little metal fold out table next to it equipped with 7-up, crackers, and sometimes medicine. It was weird hearing the telephone ring because I knew there was no way it was for me. If the doorbell rang, I knew it had to be the mailman or UPS man delivering something. Sometimes my mother would have one of her lady friends come over and visit and I always felt embarrassed being on "display" in my den of sickness dressed in pajamas. Her friends would always give me that sympathetic look and I would always be eager to hear what they were talking about in the other room. In Middle school I had a lot of stomach issues, so when I would get up, I would feel pretty good thinking I could go to school. So I would clean up, get dressed, put on my shoes and make my bed. I would go downstairs and get something to eat and with that first bite, I realized that I really didn't feel well. So after a few minutes of debate, I asked my mom if I could stay home. She would say yes and I remember how strange it felt to take my shoes off again and get undressed. It felt really wrong. It's like my clothes were saying..."what are you doing? you just put me on?" Don't get me wrong. I appreciated staying home, but for that short moment I felt really displaced. I always hated when it became 3pm because the whole appreciation for being at home was almost over. I would always creep to the window and watch as my school bus pulled up and let everyone off. It was an interesting perspective to see what all my friends looked like getting off the bus. I would always look to see what they were carrying to see if I missed anything interesting that day. Yes, being home sick was comforting even though at times it involved vomiting or a plethora of nasal discharge, but being home sick post 6pm was the pits!
Sarah adds:
I know what you mean about the "post 6 p.m." time of a sick day -- it was kind of a let down at that point because everything different about the day is suddenly over, similar to the post unwrapping of presents on Christmas day. That always leaves me a little down...My strongest memory of staying home sick came when I was much older, about 16 or 17. I had skipped school the previous day (with my parent's permission -- never as fun) because my older cousin, who was visiting from Kentucky, and I were going to the beach. Well, the Florida sun was especially harsh on my fair skin that day, or perhaps it was the fact that I didn't use sunscreen. Either way, I went home with a horrible, horrible sunburn, blisters and all. My out-of-town cousin, on the other hand, was nicely tanned. That night, I attempted to join my family at a Mexican restaurant but felt so bad (sun poisoning, I'm guessing) that I retired to our van (a lovely grey and blue van complete with captain's chairs and decorative stripes) to sleep for the rest of the night. Needless to say, I was in no shape to go to school the next day and had to stay home sick. Karma's a bitch.
Laura: Staying home sick for me had it's good and bad points. Good: Channel 41 showed great shows up until about 11 AM. The lineup didn't change for about 10 years either. We got The Brady Bunch, The Munsters, Green Acres, Leave It To Beaver, etc. I always made sure to catch The Price is Right also...sadly though, for me, I got the slew of 80s game shows, which consisted of very lame shows like "Scrabble". Bad: My parents didn't have cable. Can anyone fill me in on what it was like to have a sick day with cable? Were there movies on that were good? Did you watch the Nickelodeon lineup? I got lucky sometimes and got to spend my sick days with my grandparents who had cable. Grandparents were always the BEST when you were sick. The sympathy your parents couldn't muster up? You were SURE to get it with the grandparents. Oranges sliced for you, ice cream, orange juice-made in the blender so it was frothy...The best sick day I could ask for was always a sick day over at the grandparents house. If I was home, it was no cable and when I got older, I was left alone to fend for my sick self...except I do vividly remember once when I was sick, my dad came home, and while I was asleep on the couch that had been transformed into my own personal infirmary, my dad started vacuuming.
Good Times.
Peter adds:
Even though we had cable when I was home sick, I kept it to the local channels because I didn't want my mom to think I was having too good a time. Although, there was this one time she had to go to the post office and I switched over to MTV and watched about an hour of it. It was the first time I had ever seen that channel. I still remember that video too. It was April Wine, but I don't remember the name of the song. All I remember is that they were playing in the back of an 18 wheeler! By the way, Laura, don't you talk about the game show Scrabble! The sound effects were priceless! :)
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