“I’m sorry I missed the first month of class, but I was recuperating from a lion bite.”
The looks I got were priceless.
I was loading the dishwasher before work one morning and discovered that we were out of dishwasher machine detergent. I was newly married and didn’t think there was any difference between dish sink soap and machine soap, so I loaded the machine up with dish sink soap.
The dishwasher started making weird rumbly groaning noises as I was getting ready to leave, so I paused it and opened it to see what was the matter. Huge piles of soap suds poured out of the machine and all over the kitchen, a little like those scenes in Mr. Roberts when the laundry room exploded.
I had to call in late because of the mess and I don’t think they believed me one bit. But it really happened, I swear!
You know, you really ought to start an ‘‘Ask the…’’ thread.
Several years back, four of my relatives died in an 18 month span, all of them untimely. Fortunately, I was the boss, so I didn’t have to ask to take time off to attend the services, I just had to rearrange the schedule. After the fourth one, though, I did remark to my boss, the company owner: “you know, if one of my employees used this excuse so often, I’d seriously question it…”
When I was doing my Internship at the hospital, I would take my scrubs to work and wear them there (the top of the scrubs were uncomfortable to drive in). Work was 25 miles away on the 405. So I’m already having a bad day that morning and I get there a little late. Then I realize I left my scrubs at home. It took me three hours to go get the scrubs and come back to work. God, that was an embarrassing phone call. Fortunately, my Boss Lady was pretty cool.
I said, “you know those dreams where you go to work or school without any clothes on? Well I kind of did just that…”
I have one more story. I had the same professor for Anatomy 1 and Anatomy 2. Both of which were online classes. During the last day of Anatomy 1 I was taking the final which I had to complete in one sitting. I was 90% done and I accidentally kicked the the computer’s power chord out of its outlet. So I had to send the professor an email explaining how I kicked the power outlet and accidentally turned off my computer.
So at the last day of Anatomy 2, I was taking the final and I did the exact same fucking thing. He was surprisingly understanding. If someone sent me that same excuse twice, my BS meter would definitely have gone off.
Wow. That’s very close to “she turned me into a newt! … I got better” territory 
A frined was late once because there was a helicopter being transported on the back of a big truck. Really, she took a picture on her cell because she knew we wouldn’t believe it.
Myself, I have locked myself both out of the car and the house at least once, so yes.
Seriously, we really did have car trouble the day before we were supposed to drive back from Vegas, necessitating a one-day extra stay.
My co-worker makes air quotes every time she reminds me of that.
I was on my way to an auction and nea the auction was delayed by loose ostriches in the road. I got out and with a couple others helped them wrangle the ostriches into a livestock trailer. I finally made my way to the auction and ended up buying the farm. Literally. 160 year old farmhouse and 14 acres.
StG
My daughter worked for a non-profit for a year in Sri Lanka. She got a phone call and I told the caller that she wasn’t available. He asked if she’d be in tomorrow, and I told him that she was in Sri Lanka.
“Riiiiight,” he said, “Sri Lanka, riiiiiiight.”
No, I said she really is in Sri Lanka. I could tell he didn’t believe me.
It didn’t happen to me, but while I was studying architecture, one of the students at a neighbouring desk had build quite a remarkable conceptual model out of Cheerios and glue. I should point out that the windows had no screens, there were beautiful lush vines covering the exterior walls of the architecture studio, and a squirrel nest in the vines. The morning before it was due, my neighbour came into the studio to find several of us standing around his mostly eaten model, looking pained on his behalf.
Last November I came downstairs to grab an assignment on the way out the door to discover that, yes, my dog had actually eaten my homework.
I was 34, doing a Masters’ for which my marks were sitting pretty much on the D/HD border, and going to have to explain this one.
Realising that they wouldn’t let me print it on the university machines, I gathered up the remaining pieces, stuffed them in a plastic folder and showed them to the lecturer as I asked to be allowed to e-mail it to him and Express Post him a hard copy in the morning. He said O.K., but I still don’t think that he believed me.
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I locked myself out of my car. It was late at night when I realized this (I was at a date)… I had to call roomie and tell her I had to sleep over at my friend’s house because of the car (no really, THAT sleepover was unplanned!), and then call another classmate and tell her I’d be late at rounds and radiology rotation the next day (seriously, I DID lock myself out).
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I broke my arm at night training capoeira. Next morning, still a bit drugged up, still in pain, and hospitalized, I called my supervisor for that week’s workload. “I’m at the hospital with a fractured arm, I’m not going to be at work today… or most of the week.” They did believe me, after all, I had called some friends the previous night telling them to look after my dog, and they were able to visit me at the hospital. That was also the excuse I gave for not submitting a seminar paper that was due the morning after my broken bone incident.
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Over the course of one year I had to attend the funerals of 2 close relatives (maternal aunt and grandpa). They were emergency situations. I live in Puerto Rico… so of course every time I say I have to go there I get mild envy looks or comments… At least, again, my coworkers got it since I had told some of them that my relatives were at the hospital. And, lucky for me, I work in the South. One of the perks is they’re family-oriented.
There was an afternoon baseball game that I was super excited to watch and my boss and I talked about it. I said how I might watch it during lunch in our conference room and that I had set my VCR. This was the day before the game. That night, I got sick. Sick sick sick. I caught a few minutes of the game in my sleeping all day on the couch. Although I would have been much happier feeling good at work and watching it on tape when I got home, I don’t think my boss believed me.
When I was younger, my family flew down to see our uncle in Seattle. Our plan was to drive up to British Columbia from there. Unfortunately, at the last second my uncle had to bail because of a business trip, so he lent us his car. We got to the border, and my dad as usual got grilled because despite the fact that he’s lived nearly all of his life in Canada, he wasn’t a citizen at that point. That led to something like the following:
Customs: Your ID says you’re from Ottawa but you’re driving a vehicle with Washington plates. Care to explain that, sir?
Dad: Oh, the car is my brother’s. He let us borrow it for the trip.
Customs: And where is the owner of the car now, sir?
Dad: China.
Customs: … Please pull up to the main building, sir.
The Oregon coast really is lovely in the summer.
Oh yea, I had a test due the same day I had to fly to my aunt’s funeral. I emailed the professor, who was very understanding and let me took the test as soon as I got back, in his office.
Do really stupid injuries count? I’m the world’s biggest klutz. The worst was when I got a shiner from – hitting my face on a chair. I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and stepped on something on the floor. I bent over to pick it up, forgetting that I had my fan sitting on a chair in the middle of the room.
It sounded like the kind of lie you’d tell if your SO was beating you.
Oh, and I have a bruise on my leg right now – from tripping over a fire hydrant. I was out with a friend this weekend and I we were walking back to the car, and I walked right into it. Holy shit, that hurt. :smack:
Good God. Was the poor kitty OK?!
I used to work at a domestic violence shelter, and one weekend in my classic klutzy fashion, I ran into the edge of an open door and gave myself a black eye. On Monday, my coworkers did NOT believe that’s what actually happened!! 