The two most common excuses are sick child and death in the family, I consider that bad karma so I advise you don’t use those excuses.
Here are some user friendly excuses to make sure you aren’t stuck at work during March Madness.
1- Fake a back injury
The reason this is effective is because back injuries are very hard to diagnose. Now the key to this is to complain about your back hurting days before, then on Wednesday a day before the games start as you are reaching for someone in the workplace, just collapse.
Jobs are deathly afraid of worker’s comp claims, so they will immediately make you go to the doctor. Go to Urgent Care, say you are having back spasms, they will give you some ibuprofen and you will have at least a week off to enjoy March Madness.
2- Pipes broke in your house
The key to this is you have to be working really hard at your job. You can’t give your boss any inclination that you want to go home.
Have a woman call your job in a panic state, say your pipes have busted and your house is flooding, they have no choice but to let you go home.
3- LICE Attack
Just make you have a good fake doctor note, no one wants to be around when someone has LICE.
4- Court appearance
The more embarrassing the better. Eviction, child support, divorce, bad checks and etc. Anything that makes your boss uncomfortable. Be careful with jury duty, they can verify that.
5- Invite your boss to Hooters
This is considered the YOLO shot. It is likely your boss knows you are plotting to leave, but there is a chance he or she wants to leave too.
So, just float out the idea you both should go and no one will ever know. I can tell you from experience, this has worked before.