Phoning in sick on May 1 is a great way for Americans to join the rest of the world in celebrating an important American holiday.

It is also a good way for Americans to squeeze a little bit of leisure from increasingly unleisurely lives.

(As for non-Americans, phoning in sick the day after your May 1 holiday is a very nice way to show solidarity with your American cousins, and to give expression to concerns of your own.)

But we'd like you--American or not--to tell us why you think it's a good idea to phone in sick on May 1 or May 2. Best reasons so far (sent in anonymously unless otherwise noted):

• There are so many protests to attend!
• You feel very well! (Andrei Codrescu)
• There's so much to do in Chicago!
• There's so much to do in San Francisco! (photographs of what happened)
• There's so much to read! (stutz@dsl.org writes: "Donald Barthelme's 'The Rise of Capitalism' was just posted today; I also recommend 'May Day,' a masterpiece by F. Scott Fitzgerald.")
• You work too much (and that includes surfing)! (Andrei Codrescu)
• There's so much to do on the web!
  • Electronic civil disobedience against the WTO (download mirror)
  • International Infoshop page
  • Mayday on the Web
  • etc.
• There's so much to do in New York!
  • There's great Broadway theater here or here - without Javascript here or here! (The Surveillance Camera Players will spring into action on Mayday.)
  • There's beautiful music!
  • There's interesting foreign relations work!
• There's so much to do in Canada!
  • In Vancouver, for example, there's a music festival and much else going on!
• There's so much to figure out about globalization!
• There's so much to do in London!
• There's so much to do in D.C.!
• It's Manon Ress's birthday! (Manon Ress)
• pay homage to the goddess "Lingering." (Basia@thexpatcafe.com)
• There's so much napping, wandering, daydreaming, massage-getting, etc. to do! (Kai)
• There are so many devices to turn off, burn, or throw into the toilet: cell phones, fax machines, beepers.... (Kai)
• "A couple of years ago, when I had to take a few days off from work to take care of some personal things, my boss sarcastically asked me, 'Is work getting in the way of life?' That has since become my motto!" (aallastar@hotmail.com)
• There's so much to do, period, besides work more and more every year.