Through my 40s it was almost impossible to pull that off... I was in the military and if you were "sick", you had to go to medical, get checked out, and then were usually restricted to bed. I also simply wasn't raised to "cheat".
That said... between my time in the Navy (called up from the Reserves after 9/11) I worked as a telecommunications engineer for 5 years.
The job was 24 / 7 on-call and VERY stressful... I had an agreement with the Operations VP that I'd call in on occassion and request a "mental health day" (namely I was likely to punch some idiot if I came in), or I'd have "eye trouble" (I simply couldn't see coming in for a day).
NOW though, I'm self-employed... my wife and I run a ranch and vineyard, and we frequently look at each other and just grin when we decide that we'll be knocking off work at Noon... or we decide in the morning that what we REALLY need to do is ride our horses over to the Josey Ranch or Mary & Jerry's for the day and hang out and have some cocktails.
Last Friday we got silly... harnessed up our Percheron to our wagon and rode into town at 2pm. Played in the park with the grandkids, did our grocery shopping, dropped the kids at the community center and then enjoyed 3 hours at the town bar.
Our eldest daughter (27) usually knows she'll be designated-driver on Fridays after she gets off her job as a veterinary surgeon... but she laughed when she realized we'd brought the wagon instead of the truck... thankfully, the 7 yr old grandson is fully qualified to handle the reins.