That’s an inside joke in my family. A cousin was giving us directions on how to find a house and one of the directions she gave was “turn right at the big tree”.
This was rural New Hampshire. We drove by hundreds of big trees, several of which were in the vicinity of a road you could have turned right on. It would have been a lot more helpful to have told us to turn right at the Sunoco station.
Yeah, but was it differentiated in size from the other Sunoco stations? That’s an important detail.
A friend of mine was unfortunate enough to be a store manager at K Mart. One of her employees called in one day and said she couldn’t come in because her cat had had kittens in her (the employee’s) underwear.
My friend asked her if she was wearing them (the underwear) at the time, and if not, to get her rear end in to work.
Turned out the kitties were born in the underwear drawer.
I was once late getting back from an errand to the bank branch I worked at because I was detained by the police for questioning. They suspected me of robbing a bank.
The errand I was on was to get more cash from one of our other branches. I was in a big hurry when I left the building and started running to my car while carrying a canvas bag with $20K in twenty-dollar bills in it. You should never run when exiting a bank, and certainly not with a bag of currency. I know this now.
Dear Boss, I will be two weeks late because I walked to work on Monday.
I tore my achilles tendon - walking at a reasonable pace on a flat surface. *
My boss believes me because she saw it happen and had to drive me to the doctors office - 200 metres away.
Dear Boss,
I’ll be coming in late today because four thugs tried to break down the door of our apartment tonight while my SO was home alone. They were apparently looking for somebody intending to visit violence on his person (they yelled “where is your man?” at my SO) and got the wrong place.
Fortunately they ran off when the police arrived. I’ve been at the cop shop until 4 a.m. making a statement.
Thank you for understanding,
Bogeyman
Dear Boss,
I’ll be coming in late today because the plumbing in the wet wall in my apartment building backed up. The landlord says he cant send a plumber because it’s Sunday night. I’ve been playing with mops and buckets all night. There’s no way for me stop the leaks from the wall until the plumber gets here.
Thank you for understanding,
Bogeyman
*
Dear Teacher,
I was late to class today because I’m walking the two miles two school and the snow plow covered the sidewalk with approximately three feet of snow. No, I could no walk in the road because cars were traveling there at speeds inconsistent with my survival.
Thank you for understanding and only laughing a little,
Bogeyboy
(That last one seems to have left a lasting impression on my class mates and was regurgitated for the graduation issue of our high school paper years later. I’ve been reminded of this by my boyhood chums 20 years after the fact. It must be the way I tell 'em.)