Glorious is the morning when you take your temperature and find out it’s 98.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

That was my cue to roll back over in bed and go straight to sleep again, because I was obviously sick.

Look, my company gives me 10 sick days per year. I’d be stupid not to use them.

But I can never use them. Unfortunately, I’m afflicted with an excellent immune system and a strict conscience.

“You can’t take a sick day unless you’re actually sick,” says my conscience.

“What if I’m sick of my job?” I shoot back.

“No dice,” says the old conscience, and there the matter rests.

The last time I got sick enough to take off from work was when I was a student and didn’t have work.

So now I’m stuck in my dead-end corporate job, spending days—no, weeks—praying for a sniffle, a cough, a sneeze, an anything.

But no. The bacteria I encounter on a day-to-day basis are just not of a deadly enough variety to harm me.

But today — oh, blessed, glorious day — my temperature was 98.7.

I sank back on the covers and dreamed of what I would do with my not-that-sick sick day.

I would breakfast with a donut to fortify my constitution with layers of creamy, sugary goodness.

Then I’d play video games for 23 hours, with breaks for Cheez-Its, Doritos, and fries.

Then I’d go back to sleep again. It sounded like a perfect day.

But as I lay there imagining, my throat began to actually hurt. I made myself a cup of tea and discovered I had no appetite for a donut.

By the time I soldiered through a breakfast of fortified cereal, I was feeling pretty horrible and awfully ill. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

I crawled back into bed and was haunted by visions of video game characters prancing through my head. I couldn’t get to sleep, even when I shut the blinds and burrowed deep under the covers.

So instead of playing video games and enjoying my sick day, I ended up stuck in bed all day, and with the thermometer reading an insulting 98.7, telling me I wasn’t really sick.

At least tomorrow would be better, I mused over a dinner of oatmeal and apple sauce. After all, my temperature was only 98.7.

The next day was no better. In fact, it was worse because I woke up feeling horrible, right from the get-go.

I ended up taking three days to feel a little better, and a week to feel fully recovered. And I didn’t enjoy a single day of it.

I rue the days when I wished I had a cold. I had the cold of colds, and let me tell you, there was nothing wonderful about it.

So now I try to be a little more grateful for my health. It’s easy enough to overlook.

And I’m much more thankful for donuts. They taste a lot better when you’re feeling good and hungry.

Copyright 2025 Alexandra Paskhaver, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Alexandra Paskhaver is a software engineer and writer. Both jobs require knowing where to stick semicolons, but she’s never quite; figured; it; out. For more information, check out her website at https://apaskhaver.github.io.