My cat ate my homework once. Just a bit of a corner, and there were tears in the paper, but the work was legible. My teacher let me submit it, and told me not to bother with making another copy since it wasn’t a huge project or anything.
I once failed to write a term paper for which we had had 2 weeks notice, because the one lecture I happened to miss for that class happened to be the one in which the assignment was handed out. I had gotten the missed lecture notes off a classmate, but I didn’t ask, and he didn’t think to tell me, about the term paper. And since the prof simply didn’t feel the need to remind us about it, I managed to never heard that it had been assigned. I pretty much panicked when I saw everyone hand in their papers 2 weeks later! I had to beg and plead with the prof to be allowed a day or two to write it - I don’t think he really believed me, but in the end he ended up giving me a weekend Thurs-Mon to do it. I submitted by email on Saturday. I got the paper back, and it wasn’t even bent at the staple, and had not a mark on it other than “75” scrawled on the front, which was much lower than the work I knew I had done. Still, given the circumstances, I took the grade and didn’t complain!
My dog ate the water bill once. It was sitting there just fine, and when I came back a minute later it was shredded. I still paid the bill on time, and the folks at the city office got a kick out of it.
Last year, my great aunt died at the age of 102. I took a day off work for the funeral. Six weeks later, my other great aunt died at 96. I took another day for that funeral. My bosses believed me, of course. I remarked “It won’t happen again. I’m out of great aunts now.”
In high school, my grandfather died so I couldn’t take my accounting final. My teacher said “well, you’ve been running an A average the whole year, so I’ll just assume you got an A on your final. Don’t worry about taking it.” Thanks, Mrs. Eagle!
I once missed a final exam because I thought it was on a different day and overslept. I was the teacher’s favorite in that class, so she let me make up the exam the day after, and I got an A. Fwoo!
In college, I got sick the day of an exam and had to go up to the professor before it started and ask for a reschedule. I think having visibly obvious chills and being even more pale than usual helped convince him I was being honest.
My last year of college, the day before the start of the fall semester, my father died. I had to make some calls to hold spots in certain classes; some overbooked classes would start booting enrolled students who didn’t show and give them to people on the waiting list. I think it wasn’t that hard to tell that I was honestly out of sorts and not just wanting to extend my summer vacation.
On a “lighter” note, I’ve previously mentioned almost having to tell people that I walked into a door, except I was lucky enough that I didn’t get a black eye. I looked away while I was getting into a car, and when I turned my head back while still moving, I smacked the corner of my eye on the protruding corner of the open door.
Stuff like this happens to me all the time. I’m surprised anyone believes anything I say any more:
My best friend and I went to New Orleans for her bachelorette party. I got food poisoning from a Lucky Dog and missed two days of work. My boss was highly skeptical but it was the truth.
I was active in student government when I was in college and went on a “police ride-along” with the city police force. Unfortunately, the squad car I was in got in an accident and I ended up in the emergency room. Of course, I had a test the next day which I was completely incapable of taking because of the concussion I got in the wreck. Luckily, I was good student and the professor let me take it later.
I came in to work on the second day of a new job with a black eye. That the dog gave me. Really.
I lived with my foks out of town when I was going to university. On the way to my final exam, I got a flat tire. I was closer to home, so I changed the tire, headed back home and called the professor. I explained what had happened and he said he’d put aside a test for me to take when I arrived at school.
Yep, pretty much. We were playing and he jumped up into my lap (all 50 pounds of him) and then flung his head back and that knobby bit on the top of dogs’ heads hit me right in the corner of my eye socket. And, of course, my ID picture was taken that day. Lovely.
Absolutely. I had a really bad run one week last October - my son’s preschool burned down, my house flooded and I blew out a tire. I kept having to call in late to work since I was scrambling to find child care, dry out the house (entire basement flooded), and get my tires replaced, all while being heavily pregnant and therefore required to go to all sorts of doctors’ appointments.
This week has been pretty bad, too. I’ve been late twice because my cat is dying. Fabulous.
I got a D in a “Principles of Learning” class because I missed the final exam. Not a good thing -either of them.
My husband was in training in Ft. Polk, LA and destined to go to VietNam. He was supposed to get a final two day leave before deployment but because of a riot in a nearby town the leave had been cancelled. His drill sargeant said he would make it possible for us to see each other if I would come there.
The small airline (starving student) I contracted with claimed to have a flight back in time for me to make it to the test, but when I went to the airport the taxi driver told me that the airline had never had a Monday morning flight out of that particular airport through that airline. So I missed my final.
The unsympathetic instructor said it was the worst excuse he’d ever heard. Dang!
My friend’s dog, Roxy, loved beer. She’d lick the inside of the glass bottles whenever she got a chance. One day, she saw my friend drinking a bottle, and decided to lunge for it. She ended up chipping my friend’s tooth.
I got married in January 2000 in New York and we went to southern Vermont on our honeymoon. I was due back to work the day after we were due to arrive home, but the day we left Vermont a blizzard started. We tried to get home and almost spun out on the road, so we had to go back to the beautiful inn with the big fireplaces and the wonderful food and suffer through another night there. My boss believed me, but he teased me about it anyway.
A couple of years ago, I was in my summer crunch at work when my mom died. I had to go to Hawaii for a week or so to help with the memorial service and giving away her belongings and calling her creditors. Everyone believed me but more than one person said that at least I was going somewhere pretty. Because going to Hawaii is so worth having your mom die. Not long after, at my annual review, my boss actually took me to task for missing a meeting that happened while I was packing to go to Hawaii. I ripped into him in my comments. He’s usually not that big a jerk though.
When I was in high school, we had a couple of labrador retrievers. One time they actually did eat my homework.
My girlfriend fainted in the bathroom and smacked her face on the bathtub or toilet or something. I was a little worried when I brought her to the hospital with a bruised face because “I fell and hit my head on the bathtub” is pretty much the textbook battered housewife excuse.
I broke my arm, went to the hospital assuming I could get it put in a cast and make it to work on time. The nice doctor gave me a pain pill of some type and being young and dumb, I took it without thinking about side effects and driving.
So when I woke back up and my roommate came to get me, I had already missed work…they accepted my excuse and doctor’s note, but I don’t think they ever believed me.
On a professional level, not personal:
I once worked for a company that got parts from Japan, by boat to California, and then by train to the middle of the country.
This happened twice a week.
Once week, we got a phone call that our parts were going to be late. It seems that an animal had died and gotten frozen to the tracks, crossing the Rocky Mountains. The train before the one carrying our parts had hit the animal and partially derailed. While the train we needed was fine, there was a several day detour while it and alll the other traffic using that track were rerouted.
So I got to tell all my customers that their parts were late because a train hit a cow frozen to the tracks. Right… I remember using “Do you thing I would make up THIS excuse?” several times.
