Have you ever had a "Ferris Bueller's" day off?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

In reading a thread in Cafe Society about people and their either admiration or hatred for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, I was reminded of a bit of a “Ferris Bueller” moment from my mispent youth. Regardless of how you feel about the pro/antagonist of that movie, I was wondering if anyone else had experienced a “day off” of similar epicness. I may have posted about this before, so forgive if it’s repeated information.

High school, for me, was a pretty hellish place. I won’t go into heavy details here, but the short version is that my school made a huge change to its gifted and advanced placement class requirements, which caused a lot of gifted kids (about 80% of the ones in my school’s gifted program) to be dropped from our programs, dropped from our classes, and put into remedial studies to “reeducate us on things we had likely forgotten” after so long outside the “standard” curriculum. A lot of us went from being straight A and B students to being C, D and F students. We stopped trying, and often took to skipping class. And yet, our craving for education, for knowledge, was unstoppable…so where most kids would skip school to go smoke weed or cause trouble, we were skipping school to go to the public library, or the local museum, or the bookstore, if either of the former caught on that we weren’t there with school authorization.

The best “skip day” we ever took, however, was the time we decided to pile into my little VW bug and take a road trip to Denver, two hours away from our home town. You see, the Denver Museum of Natural History (a FANTASTIC museum, by the way) had just opened an exhibit featuring Ramses II, and as a handful of history nuts, we were all dying to see it. So we got in my car, drove to Denver, found the museum, and when we saw a group of kids heading in for a field trip, we filed in right behind them and walked through the doors. Alas, we weren’t as clever as we thought - we had no sooner gotten in to the museum itself when a museum guard came marching up, pointing at us, a dark look upon his face. He pulled the four of us aside, and in a gruff tone, let us know that we were caught.

“Look,” he said, “I know you aren’t with that group. We have a strict head count, and you clearly don’t belong. I’m giving you one chance before I call the cops - give me some identification, and tell me what school you actually belong to, so I can arrange to send you back.”

We all looked sheepishly at each other, and with defeat, I shrugged and handed him my license. I gave him the name of our high school, and he frowned, looking through a list on his clipboard.

“I’ve never heard of that school, where is it?” he said, clearly suspicious of our truthfulness.

“Colorado Springs, sir,” I admitted.

His jaw dropped slightly, and he looked down at my driver’s license, which of course had my home address on it. His brow furrowed for a moment, he closed his jaw, and his look turned from stern disciplinarian to one of puzzlement. After a moment, he spoke.

“So let me get this straight. You four skipped school in Colorado Springs, drove two hours to come to Denver…and you chose to go to a museum?”

“Yes, sir,” I answered.

He scratched his head for a few seconds, looked at us for a long moment, then handed back our ID’s. He spread an arm towards the museum, and gave us a half grin.

“You boys enjoy your visit.”

Ohhhhhhhh yeaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh.

The Ramses II exhibit was fantastic!

2

When I was in first grade, (back when dinosaurs ruled the earth) schools didn’t know what to do with 6 year olds that could already read. I was horribly bored. My mom used to keep me home from school sometimes, thinking maybe it would give the rest of the class time to catch up to me. It didn’t. When I was home I spent my time reading – things like the dictionary and my father’s astronomy books.

My parents finally convinced the schools that this was unsatisfactory, so I was advanced to second grade over Christmas vacation. Unfortunately, the second-graders had been learning arithmetic, and I had not. It was a bit of a problem for a while.

3

If you mean skipping school, then almost the entire 10th grade.

4

Back when/where I went to school, there was no such thing as a truant officer, no requirement to carry ID or identify yourself when in public, no curfew, no one looked at you suspiciously, and no one cared. If you weren’t in school during school hours, it was assumed you had a damn good reason.

Sure, if you didn’t show up at school for 2 days, your home would get a phone call, but if you didn’t answer, that was the end of it.

But since I was home-schooled for a while, there was nothing wrong with being out of the school building, ever.

The only incident I remember was a cop who stopped me as a juvenile after dark while I was walking in a residential neighborhood; the stop itself was highly unusual. I pointed out that it was none of his business who I was or where I was going; I lived nearby, address not given, and BTW, his right headlight was out. He promised to get it fixed, and we parted.

Those were the days.

5

Not me, but a co-worker at my first job talked another worker into playing hookey one day. He was a smooth operator, and very competant, but when they found out what they’d done (I have no idea how), they lowered the boom on him. In real life, sometimes Mr. Rooney wins.

6

We all skipped school once for a friend’s birthday and actually went to a museum. But I asked my parents for permission first. I am such a dork.

Another time, our class went to go do something or other (field trip) but the teacher hadn’t rented a bus for us so we all piled into various cars and just went. On the way back to school we stopped at McDonald’s. The teacher caught hell for that, I had to hear the whole thing go down, which I thought was unprofessional of the Vice Principal at the time, to ream the teacher out in front of a student.

7

Also, co-worker’s Ferris story (missed edit window). She asked for a day off in the middle of the week to “go look at houses”. She was told she couldn’t. Coincidentally, someone in her ex-husband’s family died and the funeral was that very same day, so she had to drive her kids to Alabama for the funeral.

I called her house to leave a message and she stupidly answered the phone. Her excuse was that she’d ended up only needing to take them halfway there and someone else picked them up.

Not really bright, that one.

8

Yes. In the middle of our senior year, a musical came to town that a group of us really wanted to see. Matinee tickets were much cheaper than evening ones, so we decided to take a day off school to see it … without informing our parents of these plans.

It was OK for a parent to call a kid in sick to school, so that morning we just went to a pay phone and pretended to be each other’s parents and we called us all in. It worked.

Spent a day downtown doing just exactly what we wanted to do. The only people who knew about it were us … and now all of y’all. :slight_smile:

9

Our senior year of HS, a friend of mine acquired four excellent tickets to a Cardinals game one day. It was one of those perfect days for a day game - a beautiful May day with a high temperature in the low 80s and a few fluffy white clouds in the sky. It was not a hard decision about whether or not to blow off school. Our seats were the best I’ve ever had - just a few rows behind the visitors’ dugout. I’m pretty sure the Cards won, but what I mostly remember was sitting there in the sun with my friends and enjoying the freedom of it all. After the game, we went to the top of the Arch, just for the heck of it.

I have no idea what we told the school - or our parents, for that matter - but honestly, I don’t think anyone gives a rat’s ass what a bunch of honors students do in the last month of high school.
Actually, I suppose it starts well before that last month. My friend decided that she wanted to go to Taco Bell for lunch one day, although we weren’t allowed to leave campus during the school day. The security guard told her she couldn’t leave. She was outraged. She marched up to the Vice Principal and decried this unfair treatment. The Vice Principal shrugged and wrote a note to the security guard, granting his permission for her to leave campus.

10

The day the AP Calculus exam was being administered my senior year, my trig teacher (who was also the AP Calculus teacher) had to be out of the classroom to administer the test, but left us unsupervised.

I took orders, walked out to my car, drove to McDonald’s, and brought back breakfast.

That’s as close as it comes for me.

11

I was suspended for a day for beating up the “rich asshole” while I was in Jr. High. My parents took the whole family to the high school football game that night to see my sister’s boyfriend play, during the game we were approached by multiple parents commenting on how much of a bully the “rich asshole” was to their kids and how glad they were I beat him up.
Not really knowing what to do with me having the day off from school. My parents took me to a fundraising golf tournament they had been scheduled to play in. My “punishment” day off consisted of driving a golf cart around a beautiful golf course on a sunny day while slightly drunk older people congratulated me on being suspended.

12

When I was in 9th grade, we took a special field trip to a local community college. Pretty much the entire grade went. We had our choice of 4 classes, out of maybe 8, to go to. I can’t remember what they were, except one was about hypnosis. I’m sure that the presenters were eager to fill our fresh you minds with spiffy new knowledge.

Each class was an hour long, with I think 15 minutes between each, so we had about 5 hours there.

After the first class, though, word got out that no one was taking attendance. And the weather was perfect. And the campus had lots of huge spaces to hang out in. The bad kids didn’t go to the rest of the classes. Neither did the good kids. Even the suck-up brown-noses skipped. And so did the teachers who were supposed to be watching us.

It was basically recess for the entire 9th grade.

13

Our school had an unofficial Senior Skip Day. I went with 6 of my friends, so 7 of us in one car, and we just drove around and went to different houses to drink and whatnot. One of the houses we went to, my friend’s brother’s house, was right across the street from my house. Somehow I got in undetected, but then we decided that we needed to disguise me to leave. So they took two trash bags, put one over my top and the other over my bottom, and they carried me from the house to the car. My dad came out of my house right as we were doing this, but if he did look over, all he saw was some teenaged girls carrying what looked like a body in garbage bags. :smiley:

14

Those are good friends!

15

No, but an elderly friend told me about skipping school to go hear Count Basie play. She was white, so had to sneak into the upper story of the concert hall and sit with her friends on the catwalk above the theater lights.

They jumped down onto the roof of the dressing rooms to dance, and Count Basie saw them and dedicated a song to the “Beautiful Stowaways” and pointed to them and laughed.

It was really something to see how she glowed when she told it.

16

i was a late bloomer, i didn’t have a “ferris bueller’s day off” until my mid-twenties. a co worker and i called out and had a great time.

17

Not really so much a day, but an hour. Our junior high was having a pep rally between 2nd and 3rd period. They were rather lame IMO, so a friend and I hung back, waiting for the cattle to go to the gym, and then we headed in the opposite direction, to an ice cream store about 1/2 mile away.

We had no problem buying cones, as each student had a free period, and the proprietor was used to seeing junior high students throughout the day. But when we got back, we’d missed the end of the pep rally, and 3rd period had started. So we waited outside our 4th period class (the classrooms had only tiny windows in the doors, so staying out of sight wasn’t a problem), then continued our day.

The next day, I faked a sick day (telling my mom I had diarrhea or vomiting, something gross that she didn’t want to verify). When I returned to school with a sick note, I got a admit pass with Wednesday checked (no written out dates). Then, before I got to 3rd period, I just checked Tuesday as well, and got excused for my ice cream jaunt.

For the rest of the day, if a teacher asked, I’d just say that the office secretary put too many check marks and was too busy to make me a new one.

Nice to get this off my chest after 35 years. :stuck_out_tongue:

18

I had several of these - my parents were incredibly strict about missing school when I was younger, but by my last two years of high school would write me notes to leave at noon for a (hair) appointment - but my favorite was an unofficial senior skip day. The school’s basketball team was in some big tournament, and all the kids (or all the seniors, I forget) had the choice of going to he game or sitting in the auditorium for a couple of hours - no classes because the teachers were at the game, but you weren’t allowed to leave. I thought that was ridiculous, my parents agreed, and my two best friends and I took the day off to go snowboarding an hour and a half away. None of us had ever snowboarded, so we spent most of the day rolling down the hills and laughing at each other. Then we got some older guys to buys us beer, and went to an amazing local pizza place. It still stands as one of my favorite memories ever.

19

My senior year I had only 3 classes with my first period after lunch being the spare. It was a particularly hot and sunny September so for the first month my attendance at the last class of the day was only about 50%. I used to head for the beach after my second class and snooze in the sun for the afternoon.

20

It was “The Hostage Day Parade”. We were all expressly forbidden to go into NYC and were threatened with academic punishments if we did. As a concession, our principal Dr Thumb (not his real name) had a TV turned on in the Library with the sound off
so students with free periods & hall passes could occasionally see glimpses of the events in Manhattan. A group of us took the train and went. We set up across from the Channel 7 news truck.

Rumor number 1 has it that every time the camera panned from North to South, we were on TV with our homemade banner from our school, waving.
Rumor number 2 has it that the first time Dr. Thumb saw us on TV waving, he snapped the pencil in his hand with a sound that echoed through out the otherwise silent library. :cool:

obligatory musical link

Its a matter of historical record that he had everyone in “The Office” call our parents at every contact number listed on our personnel records to let us know we were missing from school that day.