Have you ever told a little white lie or there's been a misunderstanding that's just spiraled out of control?

[BillyBullshitter]

This happened to me the other week and has come back to bite me. I fell over on my way to work a couple of weeks ago and got mud up my jeans. No problem as I always have spare clothes in my office for when it's pissing down.

However, on my way in I bumped into a colleague who commented on the mud. I replied and said the dog jumped up at me.

"Oh, I didn't know you have a dog. We must go walking together one time", she said.

Rather than me saying "Oh no, sorry, it was just a random dog" or actually just telling her that I went arse over tit, I went " Ooh, lovely."

I got to my office, shook my head at what an idiot I am and thought nothing more of it.

This morning she has texted me "Hi Billy. Just wondering if you fancy going over the fields on Saturday with the dogs? About 11am."

I have no idea what "the fields" are but assume I would know if I actually had a dog.

I don't feel like I can text back and say it was all an elaborate bullshit to cover the fact I fell over because this makes me look like a knob on so many levels.
So, what are my options here?! Tell her the dog is dead. No, that's horrible. Tell her I'd love to and then beg, steal, borrow or buy a dog in the next 40 hours. Possibly but that's just adding to the lie. I haven't decided.

Tell me your stories of white lie spiraling?

[BoffinMum]

There was an awkward moment when we were asked who we used for our current Wine Merchant and the only one I could think of was Berry Bros . I didn't think Aldi would be a good answer.

[troubleatmillcock]

I had a telephone interview once just after graduating.

Whilst a student I had worked at Littlewoods clothing store in the cafe for three weeks at Christmas. I quit because I hated it, it was terrible.

Anyway, I had the telephone interview and they asked if I'd had a job as a student and I scrambled and said 'Er, yes, Littlewoods'. They said 'Doing what?'. I didn't want to say the café so I said 'Oh, accounts assistant'.

'In the shop or for the pools?' they said quickly.

Now if you know Liverpool and Littlewoods you'll know that there is the shop and also the pools place.

So I continued to lie and airily said 'Oh, at HQ, in the accounts office'.

The interviewer said 'Really?! That's incredible! I worked there too up until recently'.

'Oh, really!?' I said.

'Did you work with John?'.

That was when I accidentally got cut off.

[Pantone363]

This happened to me this morning

I was in the chemist buying travel sickness tablets and rehydration sachets as we are going on holiday.

Boots girl: Oh how long is the flight?

Me: Oh like 14 hrs? (ITS ONLY 9) I don't know why I said 14? I think I was worried she wasn't going to sell them to me or something!

Boots girl: Oh thats really long where are you going?

Me: Er Malaysia? I'M GOING TO CUBA

Then the fucking pharmacist comes around from the dispensing bit and says Oh i'm from Malaysia Which bit are you going to? I just stammered and said oh well my husband booked it, I can't remember what its called (HES NOT EVEN MY HUSBAND HE'S MY DP)

Pharmacist then says oh is it the islands? Girl, Pharmasist and person behind me in the queue are then looking at me expectantly....

Er yeah I think so?

Him: Oh do they start with P?

Me: Um yeah yeah thats the ones

He then launches into a story about how good the scuba diving is and what tours we should do.

I walked out thinking what the fuck just happened

[leerysquirrel]

when I was a teenager I was working at a wedding fair (had a part time job in a bakery and we were one of the stalls). I was wandering around handing out leaflets and saw a stall that had a competition to win a big fancy TV. Obv aimed at potential customers so I didn't feel I could enter wearing my uniform- I told the stall holder I was entering on behalf of my sister who was getting married. Filled in my name and number etc and left the 'wedding date' bit blank. She noticed and said "when's Holly getting married?" (Holly being my name) and I thought she just was being weird referring to me in the 3rd person and said "I'm not!". Then realised she'd meant my sister (whose name I didn't write down obv) and said "oh ha! She's getting married in April!". By this point it was pretty clear I was full of shit and we both knew it . The icing on the cake was her saying "oh you'll be bridesmaid then?" and I replied with "no probably not, she hasn't decided yet, she hates me"

[Supygirl]

When my SF and M first met, he introduced himself as John. He was then introduced to friends and family as John. After a few months he then said actually his name was Eddie and he had made up John! From then on, our family and neighbours and friends referred to him as John, whilst he was Eddie to everyone else. No idea why he did it and he was in his 50's at the time!

[TheWatchersCouncil]

I was at a residential conference and a very loud and enthusiastic woman got it into her head that I had set up and was running an organisation campaigning for human rights in Tibet. I tried to correct her and she insisted I was just being modest. I spent the rest of the conference avoiding her and being glared at by the friends of the woman who had actually set up the Tibetan thing.

[TheWatchersCouncil]

Not initiated by me. Sorry!

[SerafinaScoresby]

When I was about 10 my parents bought a caravan and started taking us regularly to this caravan we all really liked. It had a shop and the shopkeeper was dead friendly and chatty. He always made a point of talking to me and asking after my mum and stepdad. One day he asked my name but as I've always hated my first name I lied and told him it was Lissa (is read it in a book recently and liked it). Thing is, we kept going back to the site for years and as the guy owned the shop he was always there, year after year. I had to develop a load of ways to avoid being in the shop at the same time as any of my family in case he called me by the fake name. One day when I was 15 I popped in there to get my stepdad a paper but he'd decided he wanted something else as well so he followed me in there. The shopkeeper greeted 'Lissa' as always and my stepdad said really loudly "who the fuck is Lissa?" I acted like both of them weren't talking to me and walked out of the shop. I went off family holidays for a long time after that.

[SerafinaScoresby]

I'll be on your team boffinmum

[BoffinMum]

I will book a bus then. Can you all come dressed as staff? Of a boutique hotel, mind, not a gentlemen's club or abattoir, lest we confuse the wine merchant people.

[Hurr1cane]

I've done it sometimes without realising, I don't know why and cant think of an example,, though it's probably because I'm always sleep deprived and in some sort of trance, but as soon as I realise what I've done I say "no, that's not true, I made that up, I don't know why I just did that!"

People just accept that I'm a bit dizzy these days

[iMogster]

When I was 15, my so called friends were teasing me about not having a boyfriend. So I lied said I had one. They asked me his name. I said Richard Stevens. Then I got cocky and said actually he's my second boyfriend. They asked what his name was. I panicked and blurted out err err Steven Richards. There was an awkward pause and then I legged it.

[TheBitchOfDestiny]

these are HILARIOUS

i was on a family holiday when i was about 13 and me and my cousin met this gorgeous boy who's parents owned the holiday house we were staying in. he started talking to us and for some unknown reason i started speaking in an Australian accent. i have NO IDEA why. other than i used to watch neighbours (early 90's) and i think i thought Australians were kind of glamorous

and i had to keep it up every time we bumped into him, even when my parents, brother etc were with us

i still cringe over 20 years later

[MistressChalk]

When I first started seeing DP I was very frivolous with my money and loved buying clothes. Particularly online. Only the problem was that sometimes they didn't fit/looked awful/I realised I didn't have the money so I had to return them. Lots of them. Sometimes maybe 10 items. We had gone shopping at the weekend and I thought it was a good idea to take some clothes and return them in store. But as I got to the till I suddenly became hideously embarrassed that I had so many clothes to return, so in defence I immediately started telling the check out girl all about my twin sister and how ''We buy clothes together which is why I have so many it's because there are two of us and we like clothes a lot and she's so silly because she buys so much stuff to try it on and I'm always the one who has to return it HA HA HA!'' All without breathing and slightly manically.

The woman at the till was saying how lovely that was and how kind I was to buy the clothes for us both and all sorts of questions about my relationship with my twin and how close we must be. I just kept nodding and making up stuff. She asked me her name and I panicked and said MY name, the same name on MY card that I'd just given her.

All this time DP had been standing there wondering why I'd never told him I had a sister or was a twin and got completely baffled when I mixed up the names.

I had to backtrack on the names and say I'd forgotten my twins name (''HA HA HA!'') and it was actually Debra....my name is quite unusual and I was 20 at the time. Debra did not fit the story. The woman gave me a strange look, handed back my card and I scurried away. I then had to tell my DP that I didn't have a twin called Debra, I was just a compulsive spender and liar. Now every time I buy clothes he asks if they are for me or Debra...

[Gummygummygumdrops]

One time I got asked how old I was when I was buying alcohol.
For some reason I said 29 (I was 26 at the time) then I had to give her my id! It was very confusing!

[MrsTedMosby]

DH's brother invited us to a party, but it was invite only so he told us we had to pretend to be a couple who were invited but couldn't attend. Easy!

We got to the party and went to sign ourselves in, only to find that the people on the door were friends of my mum. We panicked and told them the fake names anyway, despite their they asked DH's surname as it was a common name. Even more panic and DH just stutters "I don't know!" Err, so you don't even know your own surname!

They did actually let us in, probably laughing behind our backs at how crap we were at faking our way in to the party.

[PorcupineNecktie]

Gummy I've done that too! I tend to genuinely forget how old I am and then get flustered if questioned...

[lavenderhoney]

I was 18 and on holiday with my parents in Italy. Met a lovely Italian man my age. Didn't do more than chaste kissing as I was a bit over protected by my parents.

Soon after my return, I got a letter from him declaring love and wanting to marry me. Terrified at the outpouring of emotion, I wrote back saying v sorry but my parents said he wasn't to contact me again, and I wished him well. There. Job done, let down gently I thought.

Got letter back saying he would come for me on Saturday week, I was to be packed and ready to go back to Sciliy with him, and we would be married ASAP. I wouldn't answer the door for ages and on the dreaded Saturday hid in my room with the lights off. And told my parents I was unavailable to any callers.

[BarbaraManatee]

I'm a compulsive accidental liar. I really don't mean to but words just come out of my mouth before my brain kicks in & then I'm too embarrassed to correct myself.

As a teenager we had to get our parents to sign our homework diaries or we'd end up with detention. I was scatty & disorganised & never remembered to ask someone to sign it but discovered that my mum's signature was quite easy to fake. I was petrified of ruining my good-girl persona with the adults in my life by getting a detention so faked mum's signature for about 6 weeks. All fine until I actually did remember to ask them to sign it & they discovered my mum's signatures... I actually tried to convince her that she'd been signing it for weeks & forgotten. Obviously they didn't believe me but they were too impressed with my forgery skills to punish me! I did have to promise never to do it again & they made a fuss about making sure they signed it every week!

I've not grown out of it yet... the other day I answered the door to the meter-man who wanted to come just inside the front door to read the meters. Instead of letting him in, like a sane person would, or just admitting that I have anxiety issues around strangers in my house, or even offering to read out the numbers to him... I covered my mouth with my hand, apologised profusely but insisted I couldn't have anyone in the house right now while glancing apprehensively in the direction of the toilet. I shut the door in his face before he had any chance to object. Literally the second I shut the door I had a "WTF did I do that?" moment, reopened the door & requested that he come back in half an hour when DH would be home. He handed me a card & asked me to fill it in & leave it in the window while looking terrified that I might puke all over him!

[toastedbeagle]

I resigned my job last year when I was going on maternity leave but couldn't think how to say "I don't want to work here anymore" so wrote that I was moving to London (I live 200 miles north of there). I then had to endure 3 months of being asked about houses and schools we'd looked at etc. obviously I had to then research areas of London to live in.

I met up with some work friends recently who work in that area who all looked really confused as they thought I really had moved to London. So I had to pretend my husband's business had taken a turn for the worse and we couldn't afford to go right now.

Also was asked what my "son's" name was (DD dressed in pink but had admittedly little hair til she was 2). I said "Harry" without even hesitating and then never went back to that shop ever again.

[ThomasRichard]

These are hilarious :o Mine are just cringeworthy.

Barbara reminded me of my first year in secondary school where I had to sign my own reading log for the whole year and get my mum to sign everything else so that my English teacher wouldn't find out I'd made up my dad's signature on the first week.

Some high-profile political campaigners think I'm Jewish. I was explaining some random part of my genealogy and when they all started shrieking and saying how they knew there was a reason they loved me, I was too shy and embarrassed to put them right. I would love to spend more time with them but can't because of this :(

The worst one was in a long appointment with a neurologist after I'd had a fit following serious surgery. I was so nervous that I managed to get my husband's medical history confused with my own and told her that I'd had febrile convulsions as a baby, then managed to get in a complete tiz and ended up saying that I'd also been having sustained periods of deja-vu. I left the appointment with my driving licence suspended and a diagnosis of epilepsy It ended up with me having to go to another neurologist and come clean, which was excruciatingly embarrassing. She was incredibly kind considering how much of her and her colleague's time I had wasted.

[FortyFacedFuckers]

Loving these I thought I was the only person who got into these situations.

I have done this twice
I was getting served at Tesco and the checkout lady was making polite conversation asking what I was doing for the rest of the day I said I was rushing to pick up the kids from school she asked what age my kids were so instead of saying I had one DS and the other one I was picking up was a family members son I just said 10 & 12 oh she said what school do they go to I said X school and she proceeds to tell me oh my daughter who is 12 goes to that school she must be in your sons class, what's his name so I tell her family members sons names and she says oh I didn't think you were his mum!!

And recently I was out shopping and a sales man from my DP's company approaches me no thanks I say my husband works for this company. Sales man says oh who is your husband I tell him dp's name and he says oh I know him well we were great friends years ago I didn't know you had got married, I just smile and try to escape but he starts asking when we got married, (a couple of weeks ago) where etc. So I politely make up a wedding story and run. Imagine my dp's surprise when a week later he receives a wedding card & present from his old friend and I have to explain we had an imaginary wedding weeks ago!!

[Plomino]

I shouldn't be reading this on the train , I keep getting odd looks because of my snortling .

I was at my long service medal ceremony last year ( you go , see the people you passed out with 20 years ago and mainly haven't seen since, shake hands with the top brass , then go for tea and biscuits ) and this fellow officer comes up to me and says ' Pam ! How are you , how are you doing in X dept , how are the cats , have you got any more tattoos? ' not all in one sentence but you get the gist . I am not called Pam, I don't have either cats nor tatts , and have never worked in X . I was wearing a name badge ffs ! Did I point any of this out ? Of course not . I just whimpered " fine , lovely " and slunk sway as fast as possible . Then just to add to my eternal shame , my mother told my senior officer they were a bunch of numpties who treated their staff like shit . Then took 6 cupcakes him in her handbag . Thanks mum .

[Plomino]

Took them home even ! Gah

[ClashCityRocker]

I was doing the shopping with dh. Admittedly, we had bought a lot of beer as we live quite a way from the shops and like to stock up.

The checkout assistant says 'Ooh. Are you having a party?'

Flustered, and not wanting to look like a total problem drinker, I cheerfulky told her all about the big bash, with marquee and salsa dancing, we were throwing to celebrate our wedding anniversary combined with a family reunion and my grandma's birthday.

My dh just looked at me.

There was also one time I was having excruciating period pain and couldn't go into work. Not wanting to tell my chauvinistic pig of a boss this, I told him a had a stomach bug.

Went back to work A couple of days later and four people were off, having apparently caught my stomach bug from me...