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It was very near Christmas one December afternoon, unseasonably warm and dry. I got the phone call from my wife and told her I'd get there as soon as I could. I approached my Supervisor and requested the afternoon off. His static response was, of course, asking why I needed the afternoon off. I explained to him that I had to put Christmas lights up on the house and mumbled the remainder of my reason. Now, he was the kind of supervisor that didn't mind letting a hard-worker off early. He was a very approachable supervisor and very open-minded. Usually, he was the type that would allow you to go home early for just about any reason under the sun. Heck, I'd known co-workers who had gone home early to go fishing or hunting. My thoughts were that I'd get that last part by him with no problem. Not this time: this time, he asked me to repeat myself and again I repeated the part about the Christmas lights and mumbled the remainder of the reason.

After explaining to him what I had mumbled, he laughed out loud and let me go home for the afternoon while shaking his head in disbelief.

I returned to work two days later when he called me into his office. He said, "Ya' know Bill, I've let guys get off work early to do just about everything under the sun, but your's has to be the most unusual, so how'd it go?". I told him that the lights went up without a hitch and I finished my other important task and that we would see how that went in a few days. He wished me luck and I went onto work and finished out my day as usual.

Now, if you're wondering what that was, I'll tell you: My wife and I were trying to have a baby. If anyone reading this is familiar with ovulation cycles, timing, etc. then you know there is a peak time to do this. Well, it just happened that the peak time was at about 1:00 PM that afternoon.

My former supervisor and I still talk, though it's been years since that incident, and he always throws in, at some point in the conversation, that he never let anyone off work for that reason before.

If you can come up with a better excuse I'd like to know it!

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