My Sports Report

By Wu Kun

My three-year wedding anniversary was coming up in a couple of days and I wanted to buy my wife a present to surprise her. During the day, though,I’m at work and after work my wife has an eye on what I do. So I have no time whatsoever to do anything else.

I thought of asking my boss for a day off. Yet considering all my annual leave had been used up, my only option was to feign illness. You know, a flu or cold couldn’t exactly come on overnight, and that excuse wouldn’t melt the boss. So I decided to pretend I’d sprained my ankle and couldn’t walk. This way I’d be able to get the day off without a hitch.

The next morning I gave my boss a call and told him that I’d accidently sprained my ankle on my way home from work last night. I told him that it was pretty bad, that I couldn’t even walk on it, so I wouldn’t be able to go into the office today and he consented. My plan worked, I got what I wanted. I went to some big malls trying to pick out a gift for my wife, spending the whole day hemming and hawing over.Though it was exhausting, I found something in the end and I guess my efforts were not in vain.

As soon as I went to work the next day, my boss called me into his office and said, “Wu,yesterday you said you sprained your ankle but you were faking it, weren’t you? If you wanted the day off, just ask, but lying is unacceptable.” I sat there absolutely ashamed, apologizing to my boss for what I did, but I just couldn’t figure out how he knew that I was pretending.

My Boss continued, “Never mind it. It’s just that your public WeChat sports profile showed you walked 25,000 steps yesterday.If you had sprained your ankle,there’d be no way you could have walked that much.”◆

(From Yanzhao Metropolis Daily, November 29, 2017.Translation: Sam Bowden)

過兩天是我和媳婦結婚三周年紀念日，我想給她買個禮物，制造些驚喜。但是白天我要上班，下班后我的一舉一動便在媳婦的掌控之中，根本沒時間去準備。

我打算找老板請一天假，但我的假期已經用光了，只有裝病。一般的感冒不可能發作得那么快，老板可能不準，我決定裝成腳崴傷，不能走路，這樣就可以順理成章地請病假了。

次日早上，我給老板打電話，說我昨天下班回家的時候不小心把腳崴了，而且很嚴重，走不了路，所以今天不能來上班，老板同意了。我得償所愿，去幾個大商場給媳婦挑選禮物，折騰了一天，可把我給累壞了，不過最后終于挑選好了，也算是沒白忙活。

第二天一上班，老板就把我叫到辦公室，說：“小吳，昨天說腳崴了是裝的吧？想請假可以直說，你這么做是不對的。”我羞愧無比，向老板道了歉，但是我仍不明白老板是如何知道我裝病的。

老板對我說：“其實也沒什么，就是你昨天微信運動共享記錄是兩萬五千步，如果腳崴了的話，肯定不可能走那么多。◆