March Madness Primer: Fake Covid, Stay Home, Watch Copious Amounts Of College Basketball

I get it. Most of you don’t have the luxury of working from home, allowing you to immerse yourself within March Madness while ignoring urgent emails from the nerds in accounting.

But instead of hiding your phone underneath TPS reports or spending an unusual amount of time in the office john starting around noon eastern, I have a solution.

Fake Covid!

Don’t blame it on the Wuhan lab, God forbid, but do stay home and enjoy this year’s Sister Jean or Dirty Doug.

You’ve earned it. Maybe.

Let’s be real, the first two days of March Madness — we’re not talking the First Four here, I’m not a degenerate — should be nationally recognized holidays. At the very least, bosses should roll in TV sets like it’s movie day in elementary school and allow for a side of hoops with your helping of Excel sheets and expense reports.

But aside from a few Michael Scott’s out there, it’s not happening. That’s why we need to lean into this whole Covid thing.

Snap a selfie in a non-working mask and squeeze a Dr. Fauci bobblehead into the pic. Then copy and paste that piece of art into your social media profile avatar. You’re not done yet. Before hitting save, go ahead and toss a couple pronouns into the profile, just to be safe. There’s no way you’re going to be forced into work if you’re locked and loaded with Covid and pronouns.

This is an especially useful tactic if you’re based on the left coast. Portland hasn’t produced a combination scarier than Covid and pronouns since Kevin Duckworth and Jerome Kersey were occupying the Rose Garden paint.

Hell, maybe even identify as a basketball today. Why not?

Don’t Forget When Covid Took Away March Madness

If you’re having second thoughts, don’t. You’re owed this day off and it shouldn’t come at the expense of having to use a pair of vacation days. Remember March of 2020? That’s when they took March Madness away from us. Now’s the time to take it back.

My guess is Google images has hundreds of images of positive Covid tests. I mean, people LOVE to tell you when they have Covid, right? Go ahead and align yourself with one of those positives and fire off a text to your manager. He/She/They will understand and recommend you avoid the office for at least the next 7-10 days.

Plenty of time to watch the Princeton offense make its return to March or actively root against Duke.

There are 16 games today and 16 more tomorrow. 32 games over two days. And someone has the audacity to expect you to work not just one, but two of these days?

That's a no from me, dawg.

Let's milk Covid for all it's worth and make this our one shining moment.

Follow along on Twitter: @OhioAF

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Anthony is a former high school basketball intramural champion who played a leading role in creating two offspring. He spends his weekends hoping for an MTV Rock N' Jock revival. Follow him on X (@OhioAF).