Get Cozy Under That Blanket & Check Out Our Weekly Features

A recent change in my schedule kept me from updating the weekly features yesterday, so let me waste no time in updating them now.

During this time of year, it's difficult to wake up and get out from underneath those nice warm covers just to head to work. Having a fool proof excuse ready for those really rough days can come in handy. This week's top five is excuses to stay home from work:

5. Hungover - Use sparingly and with extreme caution. If your boss is a partier, this can fly. Also, there is the angle that you have eight kids and you never get to go out so when you had your date night with the spouse last night, you got carried away. Use this only when you can't think of any other excuse that would fly. Added tip: start detailing how things progressed with your spouse in excruciating detail so that your boss will want to get off the phone with you.

4. Hemorrhoids - This one plays the sympathy angle. It helps if you talk about having to stand up constantly and this causing a lack of sleep.

3. Vomiting - You can barf for about a thousand different reasons (including number 5 on this list) and ninety percent of those reasons do not require a doctor's visit, just some rest at home. It helps if you can make it sound like you puked once while on the phone to take off.

2. Menstrual cramps - Ladies, few bosses will argue with this. Female bosses will identify and male bosses will fear you. But this also works for the men. "Boss, my wife is having cramps and I'm locked in the bathroom," is a completely valid and believable excuse.

1. Diarrhea - The mere mention of this word will prompt whomever is on the other end of the phone to shout, "Get well soon," and hang up so that they can hurry off to scrub the mental picture of you sitting on the toilet like the scene in Dumb & Dumber from their mind.

This week's cool-ass thing you will never own is the White House. Sure, you could argue that people have "bought" the White House in the past, but I'm talking about the actual real estate, the physical structure. It would be cool to say you did all kinds of things in the same place that Abe Lincoln did, though I hope they have a new mattress in there by now.

This week's sign you are a nerd is that the main decor in your home involves Post-It Notes. Eventually, you need to figure out a new way to remind yourself of that genius idea you had in the middle of the night.

This week's nemesis is t-shirt pockets. Generally stitched on to the front of a solid colored tee, these tiny pockets break up the monochromatic field in a very unsettling way. Plus, they are just useless. You can't actually put anything in them because they are so flimsy. I hate when things like that are done solely for aesthetic purposes. Very inefficient. In fact, hating t-shirt pockets due to inefficiency could also be a sign you are a nerd. Now how's that for efficient?

This week's lesson learned is to keep all of the plastic bags from the Lego set you are building until you have completed the entire set. Even though you're certain that you didn't leave any pieces in the bottom of any of those bags, you might have left a piece in the bottom of the of those bags. It's better to keep them around for awhile than to have to root through the garbage.

This week's equation is:

We can calculate the perceived number of nutjobs in any area by taking one one hundredth of a percent of the actual population, multiplying that by the number of hours of media coverage per day said nutjobs are receiving and then increasing that product to the power of the number of people who believe everything they see on YouTube.

This week's Star Wars quote is: "If he could be turned, he would be a powerful ally."

That's all for now. Thanks for reading. Stay warm. Go Bears!