Excuses, excuses; we've all heard them, and some are truly unbelievable. There are times that the unbelievable is true, though.
Reddit user Goldquarter asked:
"What is the craziest excuse someone has given you that ended up being true?"
Explosions Are Definitely A Valid Excuse
A student emailed me and said he missed the midterm because his car blew up. He sent a picture of him with the burnt car and police in the background and he looked just \*so\* defeated. The email went something like this:
"Dear professor,
I'm sorry for missing the midterm, and thi is going to sound like an excuse , but my car blew up. I'd really love a chance to re-write the midterm. If not....well, sorry again. I had bigger fish to fry"
I let him re-write the midterm lol.
Quake!
Giphy
Was playing an online game and had a party member say "f*ck gotta go, quake!"
Fortunately they were unhurt, because it was the horrendous Christchurch earthquake that IIRC killed dozens.
Glad He Got It Back
A guy we worked with didn't turn up one day, we tried calling him and no answer. After a few days me and a coworker went to his house, no answer at the door, his car wasn't in his driveway. After a couple of weeks we figure he has taken off somewhere and the boss put through his termination papers for not showing up.
About a month after that, the guy rocks up on a Monday morning in uniform ready to work. Turns out he had been in a car accident and was in a coma for weeks. He had no immediate family and no way to let us know.
He ended up getting his job back.
Cats Will Be Cats
Giphy
My friend came to class back in high school with a ripped uniform shirt and told us the lions got it.
As it turns out his mum was a vet for a zoo and had two cubs in her backyard. They saw his shirt flapping on the line and did what cats do: shredded it.
SWAT Excuse
A co-worker of mine said he couldn't come into work because the police wouldn't let him. Everyone at work called bullshit and then he sent us a picture from his window of a SWAT sniper using his car to monitor another building in his complex. Apparently there was a hostage situation. Everyone ended up being safe!
Peacock Just Wants To Be Loved
I was late to work once because a peacock was in the middle of the road. Boss didn't believe me until the next day when the peacock blocked the road when he was coming in.
Definitive Proof
I'm a high school teacher. ~10 years ago I had a student say he didn't do the homework because his car caught fire on his ride home, and his textbook was in the back seat. I was suspicious, but he quickly produced the badly charred textbook, which was also completely waterlogged from when the fire department put out the fire, and asked me if I could issue him a new one.
It's possible that he burned and soaked his textbook in an effort to getting out of doing the homework. If that was the case, bravo.
You're Not Allowed
Someone was running late for something due to a traffic accident, and a road being closed. So they tried an alternate route, and that was closed for a different incident. So they called, said that they'd try another way. The third route was blocked for something else. They called again, said they gave up and went back home. Checked the news, and they weren't making any of it up - there was no escape from their neighbourhood for awhile that day, several main roads were shut down for various reasons.
They Were Having A Magical Time
A friend told me he was late for tennis because he was stranded on a huge floaty unicorn on Lake Huron.
Turns out him and his girl rode out on the lake and couldn't get back. He had to call me and the coast guard because the unicorn was too big to drag back, for reference it was 60lbs not inflated or wet.
Swans Are Jerks
"Sorry mate a swan wouldn't let me out the car"
Turns out it was true as he was on the phone to his mum screaming and she takes great joy telling us this story.
Explosions Are Surprisingly Common
'My neighbors house blew up and the cops wont let anyone leave'.
Was an active meth lab and he couldn't smell squat, apparently.
A Compelling Excuse
Guy never showed up to work, and we couldn't get hold of him of on the phone.
Turns out he had been trapped inside a bank during a robbery that became a hostage situation. Nobody hurt thankfully.
-User Account Deleted
A Pointed Refusal
Asking someone I knew to go to the bar and hearing "I cant I got stabbed" turned out to be true. He sent me the video footage from the bar he was stabbed at. Over a game of pool arguing over the rules. The guy waited in bushes until bar close and stabbed him in the back. Cops did get the guy and the victim was okay after the hospital.
The Miracle Of Life
An employee was late to work because she had to scrub down her car after her friend gave birth in it. They were on their way to the hospital and didn't get there fast enough.
OUCH!
I had a student that claimed his eyes were swollen shut from poison ivy. I didn't believe him, but another teacher dropped off some assignments at his house, and said it was true. That must have sucked.
Did They Not Know Who They'd Hired?
Hired an employee via phone interview and she didn't show up first day at work. Called her up, she said she did come to work and received orientation. HR said she they didn't give anyone orientation..
Turns out she went to wrong address and they had an orientation for a dozen new hires and she somehow got in and tagged along.
He Just Wanted To Visit
I got a call once to go cover a shift for a co-worker as she has a horse at her house and she has to wait for it to be picked up. I laughed when I heard it but she sent me photos and apologized about me having to do her shift explaining the horse belongs to her mother and she often rides it to her house because the neighbour kids like it and stuff.
Turns out the horse got out the stables and decides to go for a long walk overnight and she was startled by some rattling at the open window in the living room. She thought somebody had broken in so ran in with a knife and found a horse head sticking through her open window into the living room like "Sup, got food? I've been walking all night and I'm hungry"
Her parents came with their horse trailer thing to get it but it took a while before they could arrive.
Sounds About Right
My cat tried to eat my homework when I was a kid. My teacher got a good laughs from the fang marks all over the page when I showed them.
Sometimes You Don't Want Proof
"I'm gonna be late, there's a naked crackhead on my roof. Waiting for police."
"You can just say you're running late, dude"
**sends picture message of a naked crackhead on his roof**
"Wow, there is a naked crackhead on your roof. Do what you gotta do, I'll cover."
Just Viewing My New Menagerie
My cousin told me he wasn't coming over because he was watching the elephant and giraffe in my aunt's backyard.
Turns out a truck carrying circus animals tipped over and the animals spilled out of the trailer.
-Briickhouse
I try my best to follow the law. And Lord knows how well I'm doing. There are so many obscure laws for ridiculous things, yet, scamming people of their life savings is a free pass. I'm confused... apparently, so are many others...
Save a Life
drag race drugs GIFGiphy"Hiking up prices of life saving medications. (Insulin, epi-pens, etc.)".
The Hands of Time
"Advertisement like "anti-aging" is absolutely preposterous."
"I would love to see a massive class action lawsuit against any skincare that proposes "anti-aging". Watch a judge rule in the plaintiff's favor citing that the products did not actually turn back time."
Credit
"Your credit score goes down because you cancelled a credit card."
"You want to have multiple lines of credit that you're responsible with, preferably for a long period of time, because it proves you're a reliable borrower. If you have no debt, it's almost like you've not established credit at all. Your score goes up the more lines of credit you have. It's bonkers. Someone more financially literate than me could probably explain better, though."
- isocleat
The Devil
Kate Mckinnon Snl GIF by Saturday Night LiveGiphy"Hi, I'm X. We're trying to reach you regarding your car's extended warranty."
- Mtt76812
I'm at the end of my tether with these car warranty calls. I swear to God... nevermind. And advertisements needs to be more regulated. That is a start at better fixing justice.
Extra $$$
Happy Credit Card GIF by HollyoaksGiphy"Convenience fees for online ticket purchases. Why am I getting charged for saving on paper, ink, and everyone's time?"
You're Cancelled
"Companies making it really difficult to cancel things. Especially subscriptions. I think the process to subscribe to something to should be exactly the same as the process to cancel it. I'm looking at you spotify."
"Gyms in general. before they started popping up everywhere I was a member at LA fitness."
"Well I moved 2hrs away from the closest one and they wanted me to come in person to cancel, then they wanted me to send in a damn letter. I can signup online, why can't I cancel online?"
- Rektw
No muss, no fuss.
"Printer ink being ridiculously expensive for no reason."
"Buy a laser printer. Here's my oft-told tale of woe: School got out so my kids no longer had homework to print. A month or so later we needed to print a document. Our Kodak injket printer not only refused to print but said we needed to buy a new ($90) print head because the old one had gummed up, because we'd gone too long without printing."
"I went to the local office supply store and bought a Brother laser printer. It scans, it copies, it uses wifi, and most importantly it just works.About twice a year when we need to print something I go and get it out of my garage and bring it into the house, set it on the kitchen counter, plug it in, and print to it."
"It works great - even remembers my wifi settings (SSID and password) from the previous time. No muss, no fuss. If I really want to print something in color I'll use Kinkos. Turns out I literally never need to print in color."
Child Currency
"Using children to monetize your social media channels."
"It's honestly sad that their parents force them to be the face of their social media accounts, since the children will never have a normal childhood due to their fame."
Bot Thieves
Theatre GIF by StubHubGiphy"Bots buying tickets and up-charging the crap out of the price."
- pgh613
Those ticket thieves need to be taken down. No Broadway show is worth $1000! Don't fall for it kids. That mess needs to be cleaned up. There is actual crime happening to the naked eye. Let's focus there.
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