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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask for hilariously crap excuses you’ve been given?

275 replies

MatildaTheCat · 03/05/2019 18:54

I will start with one I recently received.

I have an old school friend who I have very sporadic contact with via email. When I contacted her for a catch up recently I made some reference to ‘we must get together some time,’ as you do.

She emailed me back a few days later with her news but added that she couldn’t commit to getting together this year because last year a pipe in her (adult) daughter’s bedroom had leaked and she needed to decorate her room. She doesn’t have a job or any dependent children just to be clear. Hmm

If she’d ignored that comment although or said she was up to her eyes in it OR even said ‘not really into meeting up’ I wouldn’t have cared at all.

It made me laugh anyway. So what totally silly excuses have you been offered?

OP posts:
Sux2buthen · 03/05/2019 18:57

Someone I had a sleepover with (ahem) cake round to drop off something I'd left there. Being polite i offered him a cold drink which he accepted.
He then received an obviously pre planned phone call saying that his best friend was locked out of home and had somehow got stuck up a ladder and needed rescuing.
I was rejected without even being interested in him, I was mortified lol

PulyaSochsup · 03/05/2019 19:02

I was twelve and my first love broke up with me as his mother didn't want him to get emotionally involved because his dog had just died. The next day he was seen holding hands with a girl who lived in the next street! I laugh now, but at the time I was really upset 😭

Trinpy · 03/05/2019 19:06

That OP really made me laugh!

When I was 16 my boyfriend stood me up for a date to shoplift pick and mix from Woolworths. I was furious!

Boom45 · 03/05/2019 19:11

I worked with someone once who disappeared for 2 weeks, then arrived back with a sun tan. He said he lost his keys and mobile on the way back from work then his housemate left in the middle of the night for a holiday, locking the door behind him and he was stuck in his house without anyway of contacting anyone for 2 whole weeks....

HenSolo · 03/05/2019 19:20

My ‘best’ friend from school said she couldn’t make it to my thirtieth birthday because she had to tidy her house. Just quite...insulting. Why not lie and say your ill??

Sweetbabycheezits · 03/05/2019 19:29

Didn't happen to me, but my best friend in high school told the guy she'd been dating that they had to break up because her family was moving to Texas (we lived in New York). Total lie...there was never any such move on the cards! The weird thing is, he went to the same high school that we did! They just went on about their high school lives never talking again...and he never asked why she was still there. We still laugh about the absurdity of this, and it's 30 years ago!

TheWernethWife · 03/05/2019 19:34

I was stood up by a guy, saw him a couple of days later and he had a black eye and a bruised face. Turned out that he stood me up to take a blokes girlfriend out instead. Trouble was, the boyfriend caught them out and proceeded to give him a good hiding. The good fairy was definitely on my side there.

DelphicOracle · 03/05/2019 19:35

Someone I managed called into work to say they couldn’t come in ..... because their brothers tarantula had been stolen ! His brother lived 200 miles away .... still makes me laugh about 7 years later Grin

SaGa · 03/05/2019 19:35

I work on dentist reception and if NHS patient misses their appointment twice, we remove them. But we make exceptions for accentuating circumstances.
This one time a guy called to make an appointment and I told him he was removed because he missed his appointment two days ago. He said his father had died so he didn’t get a chance to call up and cancel. Fair enough...except he missed his appointment the previous year too and the notes said “missed appointment due to father’s death”. So I asked him when his father had actually died- two days ago or last year, there was silence on the other end and then he said f* off and hung up 😂

UmEllaEllaElla · 03/05/2019 19:38

I was mates with a girl and i asked her on a night out once. She said she couldn't because she was building a cupboard in her new house hahahah I must be so unlikeable

Tommy · 03/05/2019 19:46

When my Dad got dementia and eventually had to go into a home, my Mum asked his cousin (his closest relative) if she could come and visit him every so often. Cousin said she could has her dentist was nearby so she could pop in when she went to the dentist. ( already bit flakey if you can’t make the 10 mile trip especially 🤔). Anyway, when my Dad died, mum phoned cousin to tell him her. Cousin said she was sad she hadn’t seen much of my Dad in the last few months but “she had changed dentist”.....

ABlether · 03/05/2019 19:47

A colleague recently said she couldn't attend a meeting in another nearby town. She said that transport is a big issue where she lives and she's really far from the station. She lives in the same village as me, literally next street over from the busy, fully functioning train station... I offered her a lift (will be driving past her house!) and she said "no, because you might not want to go on the day" Hmm

Traveler001 · 03/05/2019 19:57

Someone told me they couldn’t get a job because what if they needed a repair done on their home or to order something to be delivered or a meter reader or similar came round while they were out at work.

FurrySlipperBoots · 03/05/2019 20:01

@Tommy

Awww, that's really sad!

The lame excuse I got was when I had my 17th. I invited a friend I'd been hanging out with for 5 months, since we started college together. She told me she couldn't come (all weekend) because she was going to help her family clean their campervan (which they kept right there in their drive, and it was February...).

AnneElliott · 03/05/2019 20:03

Someone who used to work in the same team as me got her mum (we think) to ring up and say that x (colleague who had not turned up for 6 weeks and HR had just cut off her pay) had been kidnapped Shock

Strangle she hasn't thought to call the police. Hmm

HollaHolla · 03/05/2019 20:13

My best friend at the time ducked out of my 21st birthday party, as she’d been stung. I later found out she’d gone out drinking with a new friend in town instead. Asshole

Eistigi · 03/05/2019 20:15

Was out for breakfast one day for a treat.
Decided to order brown bread toast. When it arrived the toast was more warm bread than toast ! I asked for it to go through toaster again and was told "that's the most that brown bread will toast, won't get any darker". Still makes me laugh!

Squickety · 03/05/2019 20:22

I invited my mother and stepfather to visit repeatedly over the 15 years I lived 150 miles away from "home'. There was always a reason why they couldn't. My favourite ever was when then-DP was working away for a couple of months. I yet again extended an open invite to come and see me at some point while he was away and got the response from my mother 'errr, no I don't think so your stepfather has a dentist appointment a week Monday".

Cinnemom · 03/05/2019 20:22

I once agreed to go on a date with a guy (before mobiles and emails). I felt I had to show up at the prearranged meeting point, but didn’t want to spend the evening with him...

So I took an empty overnight bag, met him at the tube station and told him that I urgently needed to go to visit my family a few hours away. He insisted on taking me to the station and seeing me onto the train...

I wonder if he knew it was an excuse haha. Such a waste of my time and money!!

Yesicancancan · 03/05/2019 20:23

Can’t meet because I’m tidying my cupboards.

SneakyGremlins · 03/05/2019 20:25

Invited a mate out for a subway and was told she would but she thought her cat had a cold and didn't want to pass it on Confused

She apparently was fine but she wanted to be sure the cat was Hmm

Outanabout · 03/05/2019 20:25

The lamest excuse I ever had was from my ex. He never - and I mean never - managed to have a meal with me and the children. A friend suggested I treat it like a negotiation, so got him to agree to dinner together one night a week. The following day he told me he'd thought about it and realised that if he gave in on that there would be no end to the demands I'd make 😐😐😐 Surprisingly I left shortly after that. 😂 I can laugh now...

GunpowderGelatine · 03/05/2019 20:27

When my best friend's little boy was 18 months old we agreed to meet for a play date at a soft play. She had to cancel because she was lowering his cot that day Confused I said (in a nice way) if you CBA just say I'm not bothered

Bluntness100 · 03/05/2019 20:31

A guy at work entered something into our system to explain what he was working on, but that something had previously been completed by him , so I asked him exactly why he had started it again as new, when it had been completed a couple of months ago,

He responded to my email saying " well I didn't know you could actually see last year"

🤣

ForalltheSaints · 03/05/2019 20:34

Great Northern and Thameslink trains cancelled north of the river as they had run out of trains because of an incident in Redhill. So a colleague could not get home to Luton.

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