FERRIS AND THE ART OF THE PHANTOM AILMENT

The 1986 motion picture, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off revolves around a character played by Matthew Broderick, a high schooler who is notorious for bunking class. The plot of the movie is centred on the events of one particularly eventful day that Ferris decides to cut class and the drama that unfolds. Of particular interest to me in the movie is that throughout Broderick keeps “breaking the fourth wall” (staring straight into the camera to talk to the audience), dishing out tips on how to effectively get away with ducking school.

I am convinced that my nine-yearold has watched the flick, or he and Ferris Bueller are kindred spirits. He has become quite the sophisticated malingerer in recent times. Before he would only start acting up in the morning of the planned day off from school. He seems to have learned new tricks — from the moment you pick him up from school, he will start complaining about some kind of ailment or phantom sports injury. It could be a sore throat, chest or tummy, which is a stroke of genius because like everyone in the family, he’s a chronic sinusitis sufferer and there’s always likely to be some postnasal drip or inflammation of sorts. Doctors being doctors, they’ll sommer poke around his nose, ears and prescribe some paediatric Panado and off you go. And now he has a doctor’s note and a free day to catch up on his Disney Infinity or whatever Playstation game he’s fixated on. Of course, by lunch time he has usually forgotten that he’s allegedly dying of flu and is jumping on the trampoline.

I was nine years old once and I also used to try and get out of going to school. Back in my day, things were slightly different. For starters, my elder brother is 14 months older than me, which means that we were in a constant state of war. So, if I had a Social Studies test I wanted to get out of and tried to fake illness he’d walk around the house chanting, “Faker! Faker! Faker!”, arousing suspicion in my mom. Never mind the fact that, in my house, unless your eyeball had popped out of your skull or your large intestine was dangling around your ankles, you were going to school come rain or hurricane.

One fateful Friday morning I was meant to be in Handcraft inspection and, because of my lifelong aversion to manual labour, I obviously hadn’t made anything. Mr Gatsheni had promised us a beating to end all beatings if we didn’t have pieces to rival Bernini’s ‘Apollo and Daphne’. So I panicked and ingested two Brooklax tablets, a popular laxative at the time. By bedtime, some four hours later, nothing had happened. More panic. So I took two more. There was the Night of the Long Knives. Mine was the Night of the Brown Rivers of Shame. Around 6am my mom was bundled out of the way by a groaning 10-year-old making a dash for the solitary bathroom in the house. The good news is that I avoided Mr Gatsheni’s cattle whip. The bad news is that I spent the day in bed, with sunken eyes, guzzling saline liquid.

I wish I could claim that playing truant is a habit I left in my childhood but I would be lying like a member of the SABC board appearing in front of a parliamentary committee. I’m ashamed to report that during my university days, the mere thought of spending my Tuesday mornings conducting chemistry experiments often sent me scurrying to the campus clinic to report phantom tummy aches. Even during my corporate days I’d end up at doctors’ rooms because I was so aggravated by my bosses that I was afraid I’d end up “accidentally” stapling their tongues to their bottom lips.

The worst thing about staying at home without a valid reason is that at some point you’re likely to experience some regret. For me it usually occurs around 9.30am when it’s simultaneously just too late to go in and still potentially sufficiently early to rock up with an excuse.

I know for a fact that the nine-yearold has regretted ducking class. He had “badly hurt” his left leg by taking a nasty whack during hockey practice. So, throughout the evening he limped exaggeratedly, favouring said leg. But the following morning he seemed to have forgotten which leg was hurt and was favouring the right leg. So I called him out on this discrepancy. His response: “‘Actually, both legs are so much better now, so I can go to school.”

I was so aggravated by my bosses that I was afraid I’d end up ‘accidentally’ stapling their tongues to their bottom lips