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

[MatildaTheCat]

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.

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?

One of oldest friends (since were 4) was late to my 21st because and then stormed off from the nightclub because "if she'd know tonight would be all about you (me) I wouldn't have come"

I thought I'd give her a chance to show me she wasn't a total dick for my 22nd birthday. She then said she couldn't come because her mum was going away and if she didn't stay home her dad and brother would have no clean clothes because they didn't know how to work the washing machine. This is a 50 year old owner of an electrical company and his late teenage son. I couldn't breathe for laughing when I got off the phone, it killed our friendship and 10+ years later it's still pathetic and hilarious.

God I messed up that first paragraph. Need an edit option!

I made an excuse about not being able to bring DD to SIL’s house because she’d had her vaccinations and was infectious. SIL obviously knows nothing about vaccinations because she believed it - despite having two DC of her own who’ve been vaccinated! I’ve spun that excuse out for three months now. The truth is that SIL’s eldest (3yo) is a vicious little shit who has repeatedly attacked my 1yo ever since she learned to shuffle around and dare to touch any toys. We won’t be going anywhere near until DD is big enough to defend herself, so I guess she’s going to be “infectious” or “ill” for a while...

My BIL used to work with someone who was always missing work on Mondays and used to come out with the most ridiculous stories like he'd been mugged repeatedly, practically kidnapped, he was saving someone's life etc. He got fired and it turned out that he was a football hooligan who spent most Mondays in jail/court.

@Missingstreetlife
That is the funniest thing I've ever heard. Truly made me laugh out loud 😂😂😂👍

I was on an overnight conference with work once at which one of my colleagues got appallingly shitfaced in the hotel bar the night before, to the extent that she fell off a stool and gave herself a black eye. The next morning, she slipped a note under our manager's door saying that she'd had a call from her daughter and their dog had been sick, so she was going home. And she'd just gone, although not before having a cooked breakfast, according to the restaurant staff. It was a 150 mile drive and her daughter was 25 so was probably ok to have taken the dog to the vet if necessary. It was so blindingly obvious that this woman just had a terrible hangover and couldn't face a day of team building exercises and keynote speakers. At the time, I was annoyed with her and but much more with myself for not coming up with something like that too.

Another time, I was on an interview panel with one of the candidates scheduled for 11am. He didn't turn up, so we just went for lunch, and when we got back he'd apparently arrived at 11.45 and was most put out that we hadn't waited around for him. He said he'd been held up because all the bus companies were observing a three minute silence at 11am because the anniversary of a bus crash (?) and so he hadn't been able to get there on time. It was pointed out that he was meant to already be in the interview by 11am, not still waiting to get on a bus miles away. He had no answer. He did not get the job.

A member of my team went AWOL, I tried calling her and got ring tone that you get when you're abroad. She told me that she'd had an urgent operation, I asked her why her phone had the ring tone is if she was abroad, she said that then post op pain was so bad that she went to see a cousin that lives in Amsterdam so she could get high to numb the pain

My friend cancelled a few days before we were meant to meet up because of her DD being ill. 'Oh no' I said, 'what's she got?'. 'Nothing yet, but I expect her to be ill by Friday'.

I had a work colleague once who - shortly after being heard on the phone with her agency, saying she could get to a.n.interview - would fake a fainting attack and be sent "home".

She was, prior to this job, a glamour model. Not - I must clarify - an actress.

A colleague’s reason for being late was that one of the hamsters had been having a lie-in, and she’d had to wait for him to get up before she could change his bedding.

PIL’s could hardly visit us despite weekly visits to DH’s golden child sibling who lives halfway.
The excuses: they had to come back and feed the dog(despite always carrying the dog and his food with them), they thought the weather was bad in our town(after letting us down), they couldn’t come and see our DC on their birthday because they had to go and see friends, golden DGC treated to trips out, sleepovers and showered with attention.All excuses after visiting SIL.
NC with them now.What a relief

I used to work in an office. Prior to me working there, someone didn’t come in because she had a cold sore!

I rang in sick from a train platform once too. I got tickets to the All Ireland final (big deal) and rang in to my crappy job in Dunnes (supermarket) from (my deathbed) the station in Dublin with people singing all around me and a general festival atmosphere. I also got my picture on the front page of the local paper all dressed up at the match. I didn't go back to work.

When I had an op last year the LAST thing I would have wanted to do was get on a plane @itscliffmas What a knob!

I was about to go on a 2nd date - guy turned up, took a phone call outside, came back in and told me that his brother had gone to test (drive?) a boat out and the boat had been hijacked by the owner (who I can only assume was some kind of pirate??) and wouldn’t let his brother off the boat without £50

I was once late for work and my excuse was I didn't want to get out of bed!!

I also once pretended that I had a nosebleed that I couldn't stop that required me to go to hospital when I just had a hangover and didn't get up.

I used to manage our very large company's absence line. Over the years my staff heard some crackers.

Him: "My wife can't phone herself because her feet are so painful she can't get to the phone"
My agent: "Well I can see you're ringing me from a mobile, so can you pass it to her please?"
Him: ".... cccckkk youre xxxxccck breakin xxxxck static" [hangs up]

Her: Yeah I'm ringing in sick innit
Agent: OK what's the issue?
Her: None of your business
Agent: OK I'm afraid I'll have to put you down as AWOL as your shift started at 8am and it's now nearly 11am. You're already aware that you need to phone within an hour of shift start time.
Her: OMG bitch I have my period and I've been in the shower since 8am
Agent: That sounds serious! Would you like me to call an ambulance?
Her: FUCK YOU
(yes obviously she got fired)

Him: I can't come to work today
Agent: OK, why's that?
Him: I have a really bad hangover
Agent: I'm sorry but that's really not an acceptable reason for absence. You can take the day off, but it will be noted as unauthorised.
(To his credit he struggled in to work, managed the day without vomiting, and made up the 2 hours later in the week)

Day 1
Him: I'm really sorry but I can't come in today
Me: OK, what's up?
Him: My grandma is really poorly in hospital and I just... (bursts into tears)
Me: Oh lovey, that's okay. You go be with her. I'll let your manager know.
Him: Thank you (tearfully)
Day 2
Him: It's me again. My Gran is still really poorly and I don't think we have much time with her.
Me: Don't worry about it my love, just go be with your family. Keep in touch every couple of days.
Day 3
No contact
Day 4
Him: Rings manager to hand in notice as he has another job 😠
(It particularly stang me as my Grandmas was terminally ill at the time)

My most proud moment: New years day 2006
We had a skeleton staff and the only other member of the management team was sitting by me and had heard me laying down the law all morning with people saying "I can't get to work, the trams aren't running" and me saying "What's your postcode? OK just walk to the end of your road and you can get on the 55. Drops you off right outside. See you in half an hour!"

So by 10.30 I'd probably received 30 absence calls and managed to get 75% of the bullshit ones into work.

Then I get a call which from the other manager's point of view goes:
[Ring]
FuriousVexation: Good morning absence line, FV speaking?"
[indistinct to other manager]
FV: "Seriously? OMG what happened?"
[indistinct]
FV: "OK don't worry about anything, I'll let your manager know, but if you could give us a call tomorrow and let us or him know how you're getting on that would be great. You take care now."
Other manager says to me "Wow, you've been such a bitch so forthright, that's the first time I've heard you be sympathetic today, what's going on?"
Me: He got stabbed and he's in A&E

I had a "friend" who would always construct the most bizarre excuses as to why she couldn't come out on a planned event. I don't know why she just didn't say no thank you!

The best was when she texted to say her garage had flooded half an hour before we were due to meet up for coffee. I had been to her (top floor) flat. I knew she didn't have a garage. She knew I knew she didn't have a garage. I let it go, but I slowly withdrew from her after a few times of the blatant lies!

My neighbour blatently stole a parcel of mine which was dropped off at his house. When I asked him about it he got really defensive and tried to tell me it showed up on his doorstep with no return address and it definitely didn't have my address on it either. Urm...funny out of all the possible houses in the UK, the delivery driver managed to guess the right street!

At least I got the item back in the end, but surely making some excuse along the lines of forgetting to let me know he had it/drop it round would have been more beliveable.

Someone I work with is always phoning in sick/late. Her last one was, the major A road from her town to work was shut and it was gridlocked all around it. Thing is, I live in the same town and use the same main A road and got in just fine and we started at the same time

When I was 15 ( nearly 2 years ago!) I once called in sick with food poisoning for 5 days because I wanted to go to a festival and couldn’t get the holiday off. Was seen on live tv twice.

A colleague of mine once emailed the team to say she was working from home that day because she'd been away for work a lot and the cat missed her. Even by our organisation's fairly relaxed standards, that one was a stretch!!

@UmEllaEllaElla

I once turned a guy down because he rang on a Saturday afternoon to ask me out for that evening. I said no, because I was halfway through painting my room (and was covered in paint).
I did suggest another day but he just said “so you’d rather watch paint dry than go out with me” and hung up.
So I suppose he thought diy was a crap excuse.

I had a friend recently message to say that she couldn’t make our pre-arranged drinks in three days time because she’d be ill. Three days in advance. Uh-huh.

My sister and I went to the same primary school for a year and left the house at the same time every morning. School was 150 metres away and across two traffic lights.
I was on time every morning whereas my sister was late, more often than not. Her teacher once asked why she was late (and I wasn't as the teacher had seen me). My sister responded "It's not my fault, it's the traffic lights. They just take too long to turn green".