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video See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ 3 poems Visions were Justified, Excuses for Skipping Work and Earth was Crying at Georgetown’s Poetry Plus open mic at Cianfrani’s 3/11/16 (this video was filmed from a Canon Power Shot camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, & Tumblr).
video See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ 3 poems Visions were Justified, Excuses for Skipping Work and Earth was Crying at Georgetown’s Poetry Plus open mic at Cianfrani’s 3/11/16 (this video was filmed from a Nikon CooPix S7000 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr).
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See YouTube video from 8/28/16 of Janet Kuypers reading her 3 poems “Excuses for Skipping Work”, “Without Religion” and “Perversion” @ Austin’s open mic Kick Butt Poetry (Canon Power Shot camera).
video videonot yet rated

See YouTube video from 8/28/16 of Janet Kuypers reading her 3 poems “Excuses for Skipping Work”, “Without Religion” and “Perversion” @ Austin’s open mic Kick Butt Poetry (filmed with a Sony camera).
video videonot yet rated

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers (S) reading her poems “Earth was Crying”, “Keep flying into Death” and “Excuses for Skipping Work” from her book “(pheromemes) 2015-2017 poems” 8/6/17 at “Recycled Reads” open mic, at a book store affiliated with the Austin Public Library.
video videonot yet rated

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers (L) reading her poems “Earth was Crying”, “Keep flying into Death” and “Excuses for Skipping Work” from her book “(pheromemes) 2015-2017 poems” 8/6/17 at “Recycled Reads” open mic, at a book store affiliated with the Austin Public Library.

Excuses for Skipping Work

Janet Kuypers
3/6/16

With our insane work schedule
and how you could never miss a deadline,
I never took sick days off.
But one time
I decided I wanted
to go out with the guys,
there was a lull at work one week
and I decided to pick a day to go out
where I could take the next day off —
I had to make sure
it looked like I wasn’t
taking a day off
for a long weekend,
so it couldn’t be a Monday or a Friday.
I thought for a second —
hey,
let’s go out on a Tuesday night
and I’ll just take a sick day Wednesday.
No one will think
I was playing hooky
by calling in sick
in the middle of the week.

So Tuesday night came,
and we went out,
drank a ton,
and at one point
I was walking down the street
with my arms over the shoulders
of two men,
and we were walking in stride,
laughing.
But I think one of the guys
stepped in my path,
so my right foot landed on his,
and it twisted my ankle
and down I went.

My guy friend saw me,
turned around and sat down,
saying,
“Okay, this is a good place to sit down.”
But no,
he didn’t understand,
I was actually in pain,
it was like I had fallen
and I couldn’t get up.

These guys were my neighbors,
so we went home
and they helped me to my apartment door.
Fifteen minutes later
I had to call my neighbors
(who had my key)
and asked someone to get ice for my ankle.
When my neighbor came over,
he swore my ankle
was swollen with a welt
the size of a baseball.

Good thing
I happened to have gauze
and crutches.

Because yeah,
I took that next day off,
I couldn’t really walk,
and I hobbled into work Thursday.
My supervisor came into my office.
“I thought you were just
playing hooky yesterday,”
he said.
“Well,
obviously I wasn’t,”
I said,
and although I had a sprained ankle,
it was like no one knew the wiser.

And like I was one of the boys,
it was cool to have so much fun,
on schedule for us,
on a Tuesday night.


Copyright © Janet Kuypers.

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may be reprinted without express permission.



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