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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:
bluejelly · 04/05/2019 11:42

These are brilliant.

Sparklesocks · 04/05/2019 11:45

I was once temping and the other temp didn’t turn up one morning, she called in to say she had been carrying a microwave yesterday and dropped it on her toe and it was too sore to come in Grin

Fluffycloudland77 · 04/05/2019 11:58

Mil thumped dh hard on the shoulder, excuse was “I was defending Fluffy”.

I’m not in an abusive marriage. Hard to look at someone the same after that tbh.

TheInvestigator · 04/05/2019 12:02

A microwave could break a toe! That one might actually have been true if it was all swollen up and painful to move around.

Senga67 · 04/05/2019 12:08

Student in work was constantly taking time off with lame excuses.

Best one was that her drier/airer had fallen over in the night and she had no dry clothes to wear so couldn't come in that day!!!!

Tronkmanton · 04/05/2019 12:32

A dubious ex punched a wall when I dumped him (good move). He later claimed to his boss that his 3 broken fingers were due to banging his hand down too hard on the bar to attract the barman’s attention Hmm

Baloonphobia · 04/05/2019 12:38

Real excuse here but a friend of mine dropped a heavy piece of furniture on her feet once and broke both her big toes and couldn't work. The social welfare didn't believe her and sent out someone to investigate her.

Happynow001 · 04/05/2019 12:40

@Shutuptodd
Is she now saying her womb has grown back? Didn't really think that one through did she? 😁

Original poster
MatildaTheCat · 04/05/2019 12:47

Just remembered another one though this is more in the CF-erry than lame.

NHS maternity patient phones to say she won’t be attending her 12 week scan which was actually about an hour before the call so she had already missed it. Reason being that her toddler was asleep and couldn’t be disturbed. Obviously she was demanding a new appointment to be conjured up within the next few hours when the reality was that we were desperate for slots.

That made me very cross but she genuinely seemed to think it was a valid excuse. Confused

OP posts:
elliot18 · 04/05/2019 12:52

I once told a guy I needed to re arrange our first date as I needed to wash my hair! But it was true.

I used to wear hair extensions and they were a nightmare to wash. I sent him a text in the afternoon saying I was washing my hair ready for later that night.

I had a lovely soak in the bath and wrapped my hair in a towel. I remember laying on my bed and decided to have a 10 minute nap seen as I had plenty of time to get ready.

10 minutes turned into 2 hours....I unwrapped my hair from the towel and it was an absolute matted mess. The only way I could salvage my extensions (which aren't cheap) was plenty of conditioner and comb it all through. I had 1 hour to get ready and there was literally no chance of me doing it. I looked like I'd been dragged through a hedge backwards....50 times

Sent a text explaining it all and even a picture of the mess that was my hair and he replied

'Well that's the lamest excuse I've ever heard'

And that was that.

Tigerbandage · 04/05/2019 12:56

My sister is the queen of excuses
I invited her to a family Halloween party tea (with 2 weeks notice)
She said she couldn’t come because she was making a shepherds pie
🤣🤣🤣
I invited her over at Christmas (an unspecific time, just “ you must pop over for presents at Christmas”)
She said she couldn’t come because she was watching a film on tv
I bought my niece a small gift, my sister was taking her to the cinema I said pop over after the cinema to pick up said gift if you like, she said I can’t because neice has a rash on her face
But she was well enough for the cinema!
I’ve gone NC now!!! But I do miss the funny excuses 😂

BloggersNet · 04/05/2019 13:13

A colleague said she doesn't exercise because she would be too good at it.

Hanumantelpiece · 04/05/2019 13:17

Trying to arrange a meet up with some old friends. Sent a group email suggesting this ( no dates) and one person tried to day she'd be working.
I did reply to say "we haven't set any dates yet" and then got some half-baked excuse about it being a long distance to travel. Hey others were willing to travel two or three times at far.
I didn't pursue it.

MinnieMountain · 04/05/2019 13:30

I arranged to meet someone via Mush. She cancelled on the day as both her husband and DS had ear infections.

headinhands · 04/05/2019 13:46

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.

Shouldn't he have given the girlfriend a good hiding too?

Petalflowers · 04/05/2019 15:18

I used to work with someone who took a whole morning (paid?) to go to the dentist. However, during my lunch hour, I saw her in the BHS restaurant having lunch with her husband, so the dentist was actually in the town we both worked in, and not the town eight miles away she lived in. She really didn’t a day off for the appointment.

MotherOfDragons90 · 04/05/2019 16:52

A ‘friend’ didn’t come to my 21st birthday party because he had “washed his shirt and it wasn’t dry”

I’m obviously not important enough to just wear another shirt then hmmmm

vampirethriller · 04/05/2019 17:09

I worked with a woman who rang in to say she'd had an emergency hysterectomy and wouldn't be in for a week. She got pregnant the year after.

CatkinToadflax · 04/05/2019 17:31

Someone I know decided at the last minute that they couldn't come to my wedding because they'd just noticed it was the same day as her nephew's birthday. Not only is her nephew's birthday presumably on the same date every year, but he was going to be 19. Confused I hope she had fun with the pass-the-parcel and jelly and ice cream.

Cornholio78 · 04/05/2019 18:16

These are hilarious 😂😂

We send to have a girl who was notoriously flaky in my friendship group, the best excuse she gave was ‘I can’t come for dinner tonight, the shower head fell off the holder yesterday and hit me on the head. I might be concussed ‘

StarB3 · 04/05/2019 18:18

My daughter's Dad told me when she was little he couldn't see her because he had been burgled and held at gun point - he absolutely hadn't haha

LouLou789 · 04/05/2019 18:25

When I was little my sister’s best friend spent a lot of time at our house. My dad worked abroad, and so my Mum was often like a single parent and she worked as well, at a time when few women with children had jobs. We often fed this other child and certainly ferried her around a lot. My sister was rarely invited back and the repeated excuse from BF’s DM was she was too busy because she liked “to do a coooooooooked tea” (that was how she said it).

Finally my sister was invited to partake of this fabled repast and we couldn’t wait for her to get home to find out what they’d had.

Beans on toast 🤣🤣🤣

Pinkprincess1978 · 04/05/2019 18:41

We had someone on a paid placement last year who rang in to say they couldn't go to work as it was too windy!

FranKatzenjammer · 04/05/2019 18:43

An acquaintance once asked me to go lane swimming with her at 7am on my day off, half an hour away from where I live. I got up early, and just as I was getting into my car at about 6.15am I got a text saying ‘Sorry but I’m not up to swimming today- we’ve had some really bad news’. The next time I saw her, I asked about the really bad news and she said ‘My friend’s cafe is closing down’. I’ve no idea why she hadn’t just told me honestly that she couldn’t be arsed getting out of bed...

TotheletterofthelawTHELETTER · 04/05/2019 18:49

My friend’s boyfriend rang and said he couldn’t come to the pub for Birthday drinks as he’d bought a lot of flat-pack furniture and had to put it up. She dumped him. A few months later she gave him another chance and now they’re married! The furniture excuse was in the wedding speeches. 20 years later we still rib him.

A boyfriend ended it with me when we were early 20s as he was going travelling, he didn’t want to do long distance and it was for the best. I was pleased he was honest. Except he never went travelling. We spent every weekend in the same pubs with the same friends, neither of us speaking or mentioning that he was meant to be in bloody Belize.

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