Hey, could you come in and ... oh, never mind
At work, when somebody calls in sick, it's a relatively simple issue. I call somebody at home, most likely waking this person from an I'm-off-today-leave-my-ass-alone sleep. I beg and plead and make deals with the devil to persuade the person on the other end of the phone to drop by and pick up some time-and-a-half. The lure of semi-free money being what it is, they usually say, "OK," shake off the cobwebs, and come on in to cover for the sick person. I'm happy, the person who just came into semi-free money is happy (eventually), and the world keeps turning.

When The Wife calls in sick, however, it's a different story. Our budget being what it is here at Mom-and-Dad, Inc., I haven't been able to hire a backup. So, when the wife calls in sick, I go home, as I did today.

It's rare that illness renders the wife basically non-functional, but that was our situation today. I blame some Chinese food from last night. It didn't sit very well with me, either. Thankfully, it was a relatively easy day: no scheduled activities, no out-of-the-ordinary events, just me trying to keep the Mini-Humans from causing injury to themselves or each other. Feed them a couple of times, bathe them, put them to bed. It was about one-third the degree of difficulty of her average day. And I still worked twice as hard as I would have if I had stayed at the office. And most of my days at the office don't involve poop, or dishes, or laundry, or having to read the same book repeatedly over the course of the day. The Wife does this every day, and she doesn't even get the paltry wages most day-care workers get.

But she does get to hang out with three of the coolest little people in all the world. Can't measure that in dollars.