SO, WHAT'S YOUR EXCUSE?

We asked RD readers to share their all-time favourite excuse stories from real life

◆ Working as an apartment manager, I’ve heard every excuse for why the rent is late. Husband got retrenched. Kids were sick. I lost a money order. Or simply, “I forgot”. But the most creative excuse of all was this: “I only had half the rent. So I went up to the casino to try to double my money.”

Mikki Sams Everett

◆ My husband hasn’t been to the gym in over a year. One day, I asked him to

come with me. “No,” he said. “I need to lose a few kilos before I go back.”

Sandra Curran

◆ I recently invited my neighbours over for dinner. When they were about an hour late, I gave them a call to see what time we might expect them. The wife was nonplussed. “Oh,” she said. “I thought that was last night.” Jim Godfrey

◆ A student of mine claimed he didn’t have his homework because it had fallen into a pile of snow and was quickly covered by a snowplough. Of course, I didn’t believe him. Still, I gave him credit for concocting such an original excuse and allowed him to redo the assignment.

Two months later, after the snow melted, he presented me with the ragged folder containing the faded original version of his homework.

Michael Lorinser

◆ Years ago, as a young man driving a very old station wagon, I was pulled over for speeding.

“You know, you were going 80 in a 60km/h zone,” the officer said. I knew he was wrong and told him. “Honestly, Officer, I don’t think this piece of junk can go that fast.”

“You know, that’s the best excuse I’ve heard in a long time.” He then got back into his car without ticketing me.

Arnie Maestas

◆ One of my chronically late employees showed up later than usual.

At least he had a good excuse: “The train that gets me here ten minutes late was ten minutes late.”

Patricia Johnson

◆ I was in the middle of marking my students’ homework when my husband and I decided we were hungry. So I left all the papers organised in neat piles, and we ducked out. I returned an hour

later to discover that my puppy had found the papers.

The next day, I called three of my students over to my desk to explain why I was giving them all 100 per cent on their assignments: “My dog ate your homework”.

Joanne Beer

◆ I was an hour late for my appointment at the sleep-disorder clinic. My excuse: “I overslept”.

Lou Fleury

◆ Once, when my dad received an invitation to do something he obviously didn’t want to do, he replied, “I can’t go. I have to change the airconditioner filter.” Now whenever anyone in my family doesn’t want to do something, that’s what we tell each other.

Debra Nelson

◆ I was interviewing a young man for his security clearance. I knew that he’d been arrested for speeding a few years earlier, but he hadn’t said so on his application. When I asked him why, he said he didn’t think the arrest counted.

“Why wouldn’t it count?” I asked.

“Because I didn’t have a driver’s licence.”

Miriam Kitmacher

◆ When our new employee didn’t show up for work, I phoned her.

She explained that her mother had passed away and that she would need a few days off for bereavement. “Of course,” I said.

A week went by, and she still hadn’t returned to work. So I called again. This time, she said, she had good news and bad. The good news: her mother had come back to life. The bad news: her mother was sick again, so she still had to stay at home. Benjamin Weber