Furlough: Day 11

1.     fur·lough noun \ˈfər-(ˌ)lō\

a: a period of time when a soldier is allowed to leave the place where he or she is stationed

b: a period of time when an employee is told not to come to work and is not paid

c: a period of time when a prisoner is allowed to leave prison

2.     furlough transitive verb

a: to grant a furlough to (someone)

b: to put (a worker) on furlough

I am currently experiencing definition 1b. I haven't been to work since Monday, September 30th because of the government shutdown. I decided to use my first day off to bust out a bunch of errands and make a serious dent in my “to do” list. After spending way too much money on grain free dog and cat food, I was in the parking lot of Petsmart and I had the DAY-O BANANA BOAT song playing in my head. But instead of “DAY-O” I was singing “furlough” to myself. It made me laugh, so I figured it would give my friends a laugh as well. I recorded my 10 second rendition of DAY-O via snapchat and off it went. I remember thinking to myself, “Since this shutdown can’t possibly go on that long, it doesn’t hurt to keep it light and be funny about it.”

Then day two came with absolutely no resolution to the shutdown. I heard the PARTY ROCK ANTHEM on the radio and the inspiration was almost too easy: “Everyday I’m furloughing!” I snapchatted that genius and shared it for a laugh. Very shortly afterwards, I received a response from a friend that said, “You need to get a job” which was probably very true. But since Congress and the POTUS didn’t see NASA as essential personnel, I was furloughing it up.

By day three, I had enough of listening to the garbage politians were spewing on CSpan Radio. Listening to CSpan and reading the news did nothing but make me depressed about the furlough situation. So, I took a vacation to Austin for Austin City Limits (ACL). This trip had been planned months in advance and so the timing was purely coincidental but I called it my furloughcation. I decided to keep my head up about the situation. I thought it would be entertaining to make 10 second furlough videos and share with friends via snapchat. I would make one every day until I was called back to work.

I never imaged the shutdown would last this long and I’d make it through 11 songs! But it’s crazy how many songs there are that have lyrics where furlough can be substituted! The Cure and Lionel Richie both performed at ACL this year and I definitely used a couple of their songs as inspiration (which was kinda perfect). Around day eight or nine, I realized that I should probably just share all these funny videos on the Internet because the world needs some laughter, especially now. I went ahead and combined my first 11 songs into the video below. I am a terrible singer and have absolutely zero musical skills. But hopefully you’ll find them all entertaining and get a good laugh out of it.

Day 1: Day-O Banana Boat Song, Harry Belafonte

Day 2: Party Rock Anthem, LMFAO

Day 3: Firework, Katy Perry

Day 4: Friday I'm In Love, The Cure

Day 5: Hold On, Wilson Phillips

Day 6: Easy Like Sunday Morning, Lionel Richie

Day 7: Manic Monday, The Bangles

Day 8: I’m Different, 2 Chainz

Day 9: Low, Flo-Rida

Day 10: Blurred Lines, Robin Thick

Day 11: Creep, TLC

Looks like I’ll need at least 3 more songs to get me through the weekend. So if you have any requests or ideas, let me know!! And let's hope this shutdown mess comes to an end soon...

Special thanks to Stefanie for filming me during days 5-9 and to Dave for the inspiration on day 9 J