A former co-worker of mine once was late because he drank his contact lenses.
He’d spent the night with his GF, and discovered he’d forgotten to bring a contact lens case. But he did have some saline solution, and both his lenses were the same prescription, so he put both in the bottom of a clean glass and covered them with saline. In the night, he got up for a whizz and a sip of water … and accidentally drank his lenses. Brilliant!
He had a dicey drive home to get his glasses, and then was silly enough to tell us why he was late when he finally walked in the door. We had a blast teasing him that he’d now have 20/20 hindsight.
This may not be so weird to those Chicagoans old enough to remember, but I was late a few times over a roughly month-long period because the river leaked,and the resultant repair work (as you can imagine) completely fouled up commuting times on my train line. The most annoying part was that it was completely unpredictable; one day the commute could take an hour (normal), and the next it could take almost three.
I was the only person in the office who depended on the Red Line to get to work, and so my co-workers (especially our timekeeper) had no pity on me and docked my time, even if I stayed late to make it up.
The funniest part was when the flood happened, the Red Cross was evacuating the Loop, because the city was going to cut off electricity to avoid issues with the underground train lines. I was working for Immigration Court at the time, and our office manager was insisting that we couldn’t go home until we got the OK from Washington, and nobody knew when that would be forthcoming. We all just told him we were going to lunch, and went home. Meanwhile, the judge who was at the time the senior immigration judge in the U.S., a crusty old cigar-smoking guy with a rare (but wry) sense of humor, was walking around the office telling everyone “I’m not leaving! I’m going down with my ship!”
Dear PapSett’s Boss: she is going to be late coming into work today because she was moving her horse from one boarding stable to another and the horse decided it did not want to get into the trailer. At all. The process that should have taken less than an hour took closer to 4 hours. Afterwards she was sweaty and smelly (and the horse didn’t smell too good either) and had to take a shower before she came to work. Thank you for understanding."
Dear Boss,
Elfkin477 will be late for today’s meeting, because despite the fact she left early due to snow, someone else lacked such sense. A mere mile from this building, another driver, the owner of a large SUV, decided at the last minute that she couldn’t cope with the snowy road, and proceeded to attempt to turn around, hit ice, and slid into a snowbank at juncture just inches before the road narrows over a bridge, causing no one to be able to drive past or out around her vehicle. It will take her aproximately 20 minutes to circle back to the main road and take the nearest alternate route to this location.
-mother nature
The best part of the story is I ran into the meeting all flustered and my boss looked up at me and said, “Let me guess, you tried to take __ road, right?”
This actually happened the other day; I couldn’t get to work on time because the police had closed off blocks of city streets due to a police shooting. Seriously, what kind of idiot draws a gun on police when there’s 20 of them around? Thankfully my boss was late too for the same reason.
I work for a university–at night. The few occasions I have had interaction with day people have convinced me that I’d have been fired years ago for some snarky comment to or about one of these twits as I do not suffer fools gladly.
Besides not having to deal with morons formally educated beyond their intelligence level I get paid a shift differential as the morons,not having a clue that they are morons, think that being deprived of their presence is a hardship.
I apologize for my tardiness, but in my haste to get out the door on time, I seem to have forgotten to grab my pants, and the purpleish tights that I was wearing while bicycling to work did not seem like appropriate work attire; nor would they coordinate with my top.
Sincerely,
NinjaChick, who actually made up an excuse about my housemate’s cat being ill rather than admit I forgot pants.
Dear professor,
I apologize for being so late to class, however, there was a mountain lion wandering around outside the dorms and we were advised to remain indoors until it went away.
Dear other professor,
I apologize for the appearance of wandering into class twenty minutes late while clearly not sober. I have been suffering from severe allergies and have started taking several newly prescribed drugs, which apparently enable me to breathe properly but cause my higher brain function to shut down; I literally could not recall what class I had and where, and spent those twenty minutes searching for my class schedule. This is also my excuse for dozing off in class and then being unable not just to answer any questions, but my inability to recall the name of the mathematician we have spent the better part of the semester studying.
Sincerely,
NinjaChick, who went home after class, slept extremely fitfully for roughly sixteen hours, and flushed the rest of those pills down the toilet.
sorry i’m late a squirell climbed up under my hood and shorted out my battery. i offered him the squirell… but the smell was apparently enough.
and on a particularly icy day… sorry i won’t be in today, my car spun around on the ice and i figured since it was pointing me back home, thats where i was going.
Real reasons I’ve been late:
My Grandad has lost his wooden leg and and needs me to help him find it.
My flatmate accidentally double-locked the front door when she left, and it took an hour of us waving and shouting out the window before we got a stranger to catch our keys and let us out.
A drunken lunatic on the bus took a liking to me and followed me when I got off, so I decided to not lead him straight here, but took a diversion. This meant that I ended up lost myself, so I’m here at 9.20 rather than 9am.
I fell into the gap between the train and the platform. The grazes and bruising all over my legs, under the torn trousers, are also the result of this.
I was about to question why in the hell anyone would give that level of detail, when I saw:
I did once have to call in sick for a workout-related injury. I had tried a new class far, far more advanced than my fitness level at that time and I truly could not walk down the stairs the next day. I declined to give all of the facts, though.
It was. One of my then-flatmates left the house and locked the door behind her with a key, forgetting that the door locked itself, and not knowing that such double-locking would stop people inside getting out. Really odd lock. Got it changed since then.
That time I was actually late for a job interview, calling to try to find my way out of the forest, but what directions can you give over the phone in that situation? Turn left at the next oak. No, not that oak, that oak! The one next to all the other oaks! Anyway, somehow I still got the job.
