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?

[Epilepsyhelp]

I had an interview at Cambridge to study philosophy. Only picked it because I was bored of English and History and needed an arts degree. Being a lazy idiot as a teenager I didn't get round to reading any of the philosophy books my HT had helpfully lent me, but I'd read the back of a Sartre book

First question of the interview - who is your favour philosopher. Instead of admitting my idiocy I said 'oh definitely Sartre' - there followed the most excruciating half hour of my life 'discussing' a book I'd never read.

[Epilepsyhelp]

*favourite!

[SistersOfPercy]

As a teenager my mother decided that I wasnt going to sit around doing nothing over the summer and volunteered me to go and do sine secretarial work at a run down community Hall for an old folks group.
I hated it. It was boring and I was miserable stuck in a tiny, damp room all day just typing.

One morning I thought sod it. Mum and dad had already left for work so I hopped back into bed, slept to lunch then spent a lazy afternoon with my record collection. Ten minutes before mum was due home I changed into my work smart stuff and sat myself on the sofa.

"Good day?" She says as she walks in carrying the local evening paper. I wove an elaborate tale of typing and Doris and cups of tea which she listened to nodding along. After a pause she said "that's impressive as it burnt down last night!" And threw the paper at me bearing the headline "local community hall is burnt down overnight ".

I slunk back to my bedroom sharpish.

[Lauren83]

A customer of mine an old gent said to me the other week 'how's the children' and rather than correct him I said fine thanks as we were saying bye at the time and he was walking off. He came again recently and asked if they were excited for Christmas and I felt it too late to correct him. I'm infertile have had 4 IVF cycles and I have 5 cats if it comes out I will just say I thought he meant the cats

[Londonista123]

This may out me, but hey ho.

I was invited to a Jewish holiday supper as a student and was asked to bring along a salad. I'm a terrible cook, the hosts were fairly wealthy and I wanted something naice. After deliberating went with about 10 packs of M&S vaguely Mediterranean cous cousy stuff that came with little pots of dressing. Chucked the whole lot in a bowl, off I went.

Yotam fucking Ottolenghi was sat on the other side of the dining table and asked me how I made my amazing dressing . I think I mentioned honey and coriander then trailed off.

[Archer26]

This thread is brilliant. Snorting with laughter! Bsby Richard is my favourite!

[fearsomepixie]

I do this all the time. I'm like Jen in The IT Crowd :“Haven’t you got it yet? That’s what I do. I lie, and I lie, and I lie!”

I was a weird kid at school and everyone knew it. I was discussing my upcoming birthday sleepover with my friend and one of the popular girls overheard. She sneeringly asked "ooh, can I come?“ rather than just ignoring her I said "yeah I was going to invite you" (wtf no I wasn't you're a cow) she laughed and said "ok when is it, is it on your birthday?" I panicked more and said "yeah it's... Oh wait I've forgotten. I don't know when my birthday is oh ha ha how silly of me" then wandered off, dramatically rolling my eyes and bashing myself on the head at my "forgetfulness". Which obviously made people think I was even more weird. Funny that.

Or there was the time I told everyone I had kissed the most attractive 6th former in school, when I was in year 8. Our parents were close friends so I knew him quite well but he wasn't interested in me in the slightest (because I was weird, probably). For some reason I was completely sure in my belief that everyone would believe that this handsome, popular boy would be unavoidably attracted to a nerdy fat frizzy haired child, and also, crucially that nobody would ask him to confirm the story. They did. He vociferously denied it. He told his parents, who told mine, so I had shame at school AND home. It was hideous.

More recently (I absolutely have not outgrown the mad lie phase), today in fact, I was chatting about Christmas with my SIL. I mentioned we wanted to go to a certain event, but it was sold out. Actually the date we wanted to go was sold out but there were plenty more dates available. SIL says "oh that's weird, we looked at that and it wasn't sold out yesterday, we want to go too". Instead of doing the sensible thing and saying "Sorry, I meant to say it was just the date we wanted that was sold out" I said "yes I phoned them and asked, they said it was sold out and they just hadn't updated the website yet.... And they'd been having calls all morning about it and he was really annoyed so probably best not to call..." then changed the subject. She is going to phone isn't she, and I'm going to look like a dick. Again. I'm a lost cause!

[muminbarnes]

OMG this happened to me just literally two days ago. I was shopping and bumped into a friend I hadn't seen in ages - she suggested going out for a coffee but I explained that now I am back at work it's not so easy. "Oh" she said "what do you do?" For some reason unknown to me I said I was a teacher!! Then ensued long conversation that got worse and worse as she asked what year group I teach, favourite subjects, name of school...... Now live in terror of her discussing this with another friend and finding out I'm a dinner lady. How do I get out of this one without appearing like a compulsive liar? Oh yes, she was also with her daughter, a friend of my son.

[RebeccaCloud9]

You should get one of those stiff leads that look like you're walking an invisible dog and not even mention it. Talk to the dog and pretend it's real.

[marmee]

I changed my title from 'Miss' to "Dr' on my debit card when I got my PhD, because I was a dick in my 20s. The ticket-seller at the train station I used every day noticed I was now a Dr and started to tell me about his wife's treatment for heart disease. I just nodded until the train came. He would give me updates on her condition every morning after that while I waited for the awful moment when someone would have a heart attack on the platform and he would say "never fear, Dr Marmee is here" and then I would be discovered to be a charlatan 'doctor' of literary criticism.

[Archer26]

at invisible dog lead!

[FreeButtonBee]

Proper lolz at the ottolenghi salad mash up. Go M&s!

[Sylviecat]

These are great...

My dp's aunt called once in December, and wished me a happy birthday. My birthday is in July! Instead of correcting her I just said thank you. She apologised saying my card would be a bit late etc and I just said that's fine. When she asked our plans I said dp was away that weekend, which was true! And that I was spending my birthday weekend by myself.

She spoke to dp's mum shortly after that who corrected her, I was so embarrassed.

[CandOdad]

My mum makes a hot pork pie. It's casserole pork in pastry. My then bil told his mum how nice it was and how much he enjoyed it as a cooked dinner. Next time he went round for dinner she had made him his new favourite meal of pork pie dinner.

Only she had misunderstood and basically microwaved him a salad pork pie and put veg and gravy with it.

[bottleofbeer]

My in laws had a caravan. They were members of the caravan club and as such got discounts on sites. I phoned up to book a pitch and had to pretend to be my mother in law. All was well until they asked me my post code. Could I remember their post code? Of course not. So I mumbled something about forgetting my own postcode. My MIL thought it was hilarious even if the caravan club now thought she was a bit (lot) stupid.

[experiencedhider]

I was new in a a company, and was put to work with a colleague. She suggested we have lunch together, which was kind, and I was looking forward to trying the staff canteen. Later, just making polite conversation, I asked where she lived. She looked aghast and said "oh, we're not going for lunch at my house". I tried to explain I knew that, but she didn't listen. Eventually I gave up, and let her think I was just weirdly over familiar and/or fancied her.

[WishIWasWonderwoman]

This is going back a few years, but when I had just started upper sixth/year thirteen I ran into an old netball coach of mine on the street and she congratulated me for being made prefect.

Only I hadn't. It was another girl who had been in the same team as me who was made a prefect.

I was too embarrassed to correct her and I could see my mums car approaching to collect me I just said "thank you."

But as it turned out it wasn't my mother's car, she was still several minutes drive away so I had to make awkward small talk about what I was doing, how pleased I was that my classmates had voted for me, which position I had been given etc etc. I was just standing there making up rubbish for upwards of five minutes, but luckily I never ran into her again.

[CormoranStrike]

Just say you don't own a dog, you occasionally looks after for a far away friend and don't know when you will have the pooch next.

[CormoranStrike]

This one may only make sense to west coast Scottish types.

When we first enjoyed our first Christmas in our new home we got cards from the neighbours. One came in addressed to Cormoran and Tim. DH is not Tim and has a name nothing like Tim.

A few months later when we all knew on another better the card writer apologised and said she had asked a neighbor what my DH's name was for the card, and he said 'I dunno, but I think he's a Tim'

That means a catholic from where I am from lol. So not only does he look like a catholic (wrong, I am the catholic one) the writer clearly wasn't so stereotypically bigoted and took it at face value as a name

[ScrumpyBetty]

These are hilarious and I'm so glad I'm not the only one who is a bit of an idiot like this, as I have been bad in the past for telling white lies....

When I was 18, I was quite shy and a bit socially awkward. I had a summer job on a farm helping to pick potatoes, it was ace, anyway one of my fellow co- workers was my age and he was very dishy. I got chatting to him one day during our break and he asked me where I lived. I told him the name of my village but he misheard me and thought I'd said a different village with a similar name which is miles is the opposite direction to mine. Instead of correcting him, I agreed that I was from the village he had said. He perked up and said that his grandparents lived there and that he was staying with them, he then proceeded to talk about all the different people in the village, asking me if I knew them, and I was like 'err, yeah, I know them'

It quickly spiralled out of control when we were rained off work one day and sent home. I didn't yet drive and was relying on my parents for lifts to work and back, but dishy young man offered me a lift back to the village seeing as we both lived there, or so he thought. I agreed and off we set....when we got to the village he asked where I lived and I pointed to a road and said 'just drop me there.'
He insisted on dropping me off at my house, so I had to pretend I lived in one of the houses on the street, he sat in the car while I got out and I went up to one of the houses, opened the gate and started walking up a random person's path. He then drove away and I had to call my dad to pick me up from this village that was miles away from where we actually lived! I was such a plonker!

[ovaryhill]

I'm crying with laughter at turning up with a stiff lead and nothing on the end
That's just brilliant!

[persepolis123]

I became a vegetarian at 15. I began meeting meat again at 17. This coincided with getting a boyfriend my parents disapproved of so I didn't want to tell them for fear of them saying he was changing me. I've never managed to find a way to tell them and it would be too embarrasing now so I've kept up the pretence of being a vegetarian for over 10 years now. Whenever I go to their house for dinner or we go out to eat I have the vegetarian option. Reading that back it seems totally ridiculous

[persepolis123]

*eating meet

[WishIWasWonderwoman]

scrumpy that's miles better than my story. That made me giggle.