We didn’t feel like going to work...

We didn’t feel like going to work the other day. But we had a good excuse. “We’re dead,” we told our boss over the phone.

“OK,” she said. “Feel better.”

Being dead had other advantages. As a ghost, no one could see us. This raised some pretty lurid possibilities, the kind you have when you’re young and sitting around with your friends and one of them asks what you would do if you suddenly woke up one morning and discovered you had X-ray eyes. “I would go into the girls’ bathroom at school,” Jake the Face would always say, a little too excitedly.

Instead, we found other ways to enjoy being invisible. Like speeding on the freeway without the CHP officer seeing us, and going to work to sit on our boss’s desk making faces, and helping ourselves immensely in the cookie aisle at the local supermarket. Or walking into the movie theater for free--utterly naked.

Finally, we got bored. We began to feel guilty. If we really did die, we couldn’t live with the thought that our epitaph didn’t match our deeds. They would have to write: “Rest Not in Peace--You Disgusting Cheat, Sneak and Liar.” No, no. Not for us. It’s like something out of “Spoon River Anthology,” Edgar Lee Masters’ collection of verse that the Poetriad will perform tonight at 8 at the Westchester Elks Lodge, 8025 W. Manchester Ave., Playa del Rey. Admission is free. Reservations are required. Call (213) 301-9300.

So we came back to the land of the living, and made a point never to speed again or walk around naked in inappropriate places. And we paid for the cookies and movie, and left some flowers on our boss’s desk, and reminded ourself to get down to the Santa Monica Library at 11:15 a.m. Friday to have author Ray Bradbury sign a copy of his latest book, “A Graveyard for Lunatics.” The library is located at 1343 6th St. For information call (213) 458-8600. Only books purchased at the library can be signed.

And we said confession at the local church. It couldn’t hurt.