Playing Sick

So, the reason this post is late is because I've been sick this past week, specifically with this head cold that's been going around Southern California lately. This has made accomplishing anything besides mindlessly leveling up Pokemon extremely difficult. On the bright side, it did give me a creative idea for a nice short blog so I can keep up to my weekly updating schedule -- the trope of playing sick.

Anyone who's ever read Calvin and Hobbes must have seen this scenario, but this is fairly common. A character, usually in elementary school, wants to take a break from it all. They decide to fake exaggerated symptoms in an effort for their parent(s) or guardian(s) to realize that they would much rather stay home and rest. This is inevitably doomed to fail in comedy -- and why wouldn't it? If a kid were to try it in real life, the typical parental response would be to check the child's symptoms for themselves. Upon discovering that they aren't serious (or completely nonexistent), they'll tell their kid that they're fine and should go anyway.

Of course, when you're a kid and trying this, it probably isn't so funny for you -- but when it's a fictional character, the situation becomes amusing. Still, sometimes I find it tiring seeing a rehash of the same situation over and over again. As much as I love Calvin and Hobbes, I personally think this situation gets old after a while.

If you're inclined to throw in a "playing sick" scenario, sticking to the play-by-play isn't so bad, but I might want to shake things up a little. Here are a few ideas:

1. Make the character legitimately sick. Have their parent(s) or guardian(s) not believe them and send them to school. This could work well in both drama and in comedy and can be played to either effect.
   
2. Have the character fake symptoms with effort. I remember seeing an episode of a show once where, in an attempt to play sick, the character drinks hot faucet water to fool the thermometer and pinches her cheeks to make her appear flushed, and sprays decongestant up her nose to have it run. Naturally, she gets caught in the act, but it was entertaining to watch her go to such extremes to stay home from school.
   
3. Let the character succeed. Either the adult is successfully fooled or decides to play along with their intentions. Should this happen, the adult should endeavor to make their child treat it like a real sick day -- feed them nothing but soup, force them to stay in bed for hours, etc.
   
4. Should the character succeed, let the class do something fun. When the character returns to school in the next day or so, they'll discover that the class did something they would have loved to do while he or she was out. Nothing like karma to spice up a comedic scenario!

~ Dreamnorn