Excuses, excuses, excuses.
We all have to hear them at some point. Whenever something doesn’t go down as planned, we can be sure that some kind of excuse is coming—and there are no limits to how absurd some of them can be. But what if a really crazy sounding excuse turned out to actually be true? Would anyone believe us—would it make any difference? Here are 42 wacky stories about times that people’s crazy excuses were actually true.
42. Gesundheit!
Someone I knew claimed they got into a car accident because they sneezed. I thought it was ridiculous, until I learned that car accidents caused by sneezing are actually a fairly common thing. Watch out for it, everybody!
41. Moving up in the World
The elevator at my university's library got stuck. The security guard said it would take at least three hours to get us out. The girl beside me starts panicking—she's supposed to write a final exam in a few minutes. So, the security guard does her a solid and calls the professor on her behalf. If not for that, this could have turned out very differently for that girl!
40. Pictures Don’t Lie
"I'm gonna be late, there's a naked weirdo on my roof. Waiting for police."
"You can just say you're running late, dude"
[Sends a picture message of a naked weirdo on his roof]
"Wow, there is a naked weirdo on your roof. Do what you gotta do, I'll cover."
39. Car Wash
An employee of mine 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.
38. Addressing the Problem
I hired an employee via phone interview and she didn't show up for her first day of work. I called her up and she said she did, in fact, come to work and received orientation. HR insisted that they didn't give anyone orientation.
Turns out, she went to the wrong address and that place happened to have had orientation for a dozen new hires. She somehow got in and tagged along.
37. Car-tastrophic News
An employee once came late for work because the battery died in the key fob for her car—and she had to walk all the way to the nearest store to get a new one since she had no other way of getting into the car.
36. Ring of Fire
I'm a high school teacher. About 10 years ago, I had a student say he didn't do the homework because his car caught fire on his way 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.
It is possible that he burned and soaked his textbook himself in an effort to getting out of doing the homework. If that was the case, all I can say is bravo.
35. Pool Sharks
I asked someone to go to the bar with me. Their response was "I can’t, I just got stabbed!"
This turned out to be true. He sent me the video footage from the bar he was stabbed at. It was all over a game of pool and arguing over the rules. The guy waited in the bushes outside until closing time and stabbed my buddy in the back. The cops caught the guy and my friend was okay after a brief hospital stint.
34. Your Goose Was Almost Cooked
I showed up to a class with only 45 minutes left. My teacher was going to give me detention. I told him that I had rescued a rooster that was in the hallway, and the guidance counselor and I had taken him to the vet. Even I knew it sounded far-fetched. He yelled at me and told me to sit down. My guidance counselor ran in then and exclaimed: "Guess what we just did!" No detention for me!
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33. Dog Days
One day, I was walking to work. At the end of my street, there was this large pitbull dog that started "following" me and continued to do so for the entire way. Right up to the front door. "Following" is in quotes because he didn't walk behind me—he walked in front of me. I could not get around him because he was too big and too quick, but he walked extremely slow. So, I had to just walk at his pace the entire time.
I ended up being over an hour late. I didn't even give an excuse because I knew they wouldn't believe me.
32. An Explosive Story
The night before I went to sleepaway camp in middle school, I heard glass shatter in the kitchen at 2 AM. I go to investigate and find a broken beer bottle on the counter and beer all over the ground. I start to clean it up when my parents walk in. I tell them it exploded and they don’t believe me. They say I’m in trouble after I get back from camp. By the time I get home a few weeks later, nearly all of my dad’s home brew bottles had exploded.
31. Starting the Day Off Right
My leg was tangled in my bed sheets and, when I got out of bed, I fell and busted my lip open. I untangled my leg and immediately stepped in dog poop in the hallway. I hopped in the shower and contemplated calling off, but figured no one would buy any of this if I tried to explain it. Somehow, I ended up being only five minutes late.
30. Hard on Her Luck
I worked in collections and there was this woman who literally had the worst luck. She made minimum wage, but was part time and struggled to get hours. She missed a few of her car payments and was starting to catch up, when a string of crazy stuff happened to her within a month. This included losing a day’s pay because someone got stabbed to death in the store she worked in and her son stealing money from her purse that was intended for her car payment. I remember she was crying so hard that I let her go because she seemed serious.
Then her son got stabbed and almost died as a result of a bad drug deal a few days later. Then her youngest son played with the kitchen stove and burned their entire house down.
I have no explanation for why all of this stuff would keep happening to the same person, but I checked into all of it and it was all true. This poor woman!
29. Mayday
A friend told me that he was late for tennis practice because he was stranded on a huge unicorn floaty in the middle of Lake Huron. Turns out, he and his girl rode out on the lake, got stuck, and couldn't get back. I’m sure that was a fun time for him!
28. And He Didn’t Even Ask for Your Credit Card Number!
I had someone ask to take two weeks off of work to go back to Nigeria and be crowned ruler of his province. So I was like "Ah, so you're a Nigerian Prince, eh?"
Well, turns out Nigeria has a lot of "royal families" of different areas and the dude working for me was a legit Nigerian Prince. I'll be darned.
27. Dumb as a Doorknob
A worker told me she had to miss our mandatory meeting because the doorknob had fallen off the front door of her parents' house. I did not believe her and asked to see a picture. She complied, and was telling the truth. I gave her a pass.
26. Wrong Place, Wrong Time
A co-worker of mine said he couldn't come into work because the police wouldn't let him. Everyone at work was skeptical...until 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!
25. That’s Why Pencils Have Erasers
A dude I worked with was in the doghouse with his wife because he was contacted by an agency claiming he had years of unpaid child support for someone else’s kid. He told his wife that it wasn't true and that it must be meant for someone else, but she was super pissed at him and not listening to anything he had to say.
Turns out the agency had made a booboo and had mistaken my colleague for some other guy with the same name.
24. Many Paths to Nowhere
Someone was running late due to a traffic accident and a road being closed. They tried an alternate route, and that was closed for a different incident. They called and said that they'd try another way. The third route was blocked for something else. They called again and said they gave up and went back home.
I checked the news and they weren't making any of it up. There really was no escape from their neighborhood for a while that day—several main roads really were shut down for various reasons.
23. Everything is Bigger!
"Sorry I missed curfew, we hit a cow!"
The explanation? I live in Texas.
22. An Innocent Man
An employee missed a few days at work because he had been arrested and jailed. He told me they had made a mistake and he was innocent, so I didn’t fire him. Turned out he was telling the truth.
21. Dogsum Eatsum Homeworkium
My Latin teacher’s dog ate two of my classmate’s midterms. He showed us the bite marks and everything. Fortunately, he had graded them before the dogs got to them, so it really wasn’t that big of an issue. Would never have believed him without those bite marks though!
20. Swan Lake
"Sorry mate, a wild swan wouldn't let me out the car!"
Turns out it was true. How do I know? Because he was apparently crying on the phone to his mom while it was happening, and she takes great joy in telling everyone the story.
19. You Had Me at Bacon
I spilled bacon grease on a completed math assignment, causing my dog to eat it. You should have seen the look on my teacher’s face when I told her my dog ate my homework—and then the new one on it when I pulled out the scraps to prove it. Thankfully, there was enough left of the paper to prove that I actually did it and so she gave me full credit.
18. Second Time’s a Charm
My friend went out for his first date with a girl he was crazy about, only for her to stand him up. She calls him two days later to apologize, saying that she was in the hospital. I talk him into giving her another chance. Turns out she really was in the hospital. Now, they've been married for over 15 years.
17. When Tragedy Strikes
My in-laws had arranged to meet another couple at a restaurant. The other couple never showed up and the in-laws were very upset at their irresponsibility. It turned out that the other couple had been tragically killed in an auto accident on the way to meet them. Never jump to conclusions about people!
16. Your Boss Probably Erupted
I was once a month late to work because of a volcano. I was on vacation when all air traffic in the area was shut down due to the ongoing volcano situation. Needless to say, it was great—but not a soul believed me!
15. One Giant Leap for Texaskind
I have a reputation for weird things causing me to miss work. I was bitten by a black widow, had a home invasion, you name it.
The one that takes the cake as the weirdest one, though, was when I was attacked by a bobcat while walking my dog. My boss didn’t believe me until she saw the story being covered on the news the next day.
Turns out I am the only person in Texas history confirmed to have been attacked by a bobcat, so I understand my boss’s disbelief. Who said I would never accomplish anything with my life?
14. Some Things, We Just Can’t Control
When I was a TA at my university, this one boy missed a lot of school. When he got back, his excuse was "My mom killed herself and my grandpa died." It was true. He lost both family members within a matter of weeks.
I stayed with him in the library until 5 in the morning to help him catch up so that he wouldn’t fall behind due to these tragedies.
13. Crying Wolf For Real
One of my mom’s employees called her up and said she'd be late to work that day because her car caught on fire on her way over. This employee didn't have the best track record, so my mom didn't quite believe her. Turns out it was true because it was on the local news later that same day.
12. The Purr-fect Excuse
My cat tried to eat my homework when I was a kid. My teacher got a good laugh from the fang marks all over the page when I showed them to her. First time this excuse has ever actually been true!
11. I Shot the Sheriff
My ex-boyfriend broke up with me because “His cousin was on death row after shooting two police officers and himself”—and he needed to take time to be with family. I thought there was no way this was true, but...you guessed it!
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10. A Bad Sign
The corner of a paper I needed a parent to sign got torn off perfectly right at the part where the signature was. I told the teacher and she cackled at me, calling me a liar and humiliating me in front of the class. It was so terrible.
9. Feline Foes
My history teacher said that we couldn’t get our papers back today because her cats peed on all of them. No one would make that up…
8. This Story Stinks
My mom was a nurse who worked nights. One night, when leaving the house late at night, she discovered that there were two skunks doing the deed in our driveway.
Those animals were going at it for so long, she had to call her work and let them know she was going to be late because “I’m not pissing off two skunks at a time like this!”
Probably a wise move. She ended up having to wait 45 minutes till she was able to get to the car safely and go to work.
7. The Lions Weren’t Sleeping Tonight!
In high school, my friend came to class back with a ripped uniform shirt and told us that lions had gotten to 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.
6. Saved By the Bird
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 same peacock blocked the road he was coming in on.
5. A Flawed Meth-od
“Sorry, my neighbor’s house blew up and the cops won’t let anyone leave.”
Turns out that explosion was the result of his neighbor’s secret basement lab, which the cops then discovered and shut down while the poor guy was just trying to get to work.
4. No Eye in Team
I had a student claim that his eyes were swollen shut from poison ivy. I didn't believe him until another teacher dropped off some assignments at his house and confirmed that it was true. That must have sucked.
3. Hipster
When my brother asked me to help him move to a new flat, I refused—saying simply that "my hip hurts". He got really mad. I went to see a doctor and, a few days after, I was put on crutches. I am still on crutches to this day. Somehow, he's still mad at me.
2. Not a Grand Feeling
We had a tech employee take leave four times in one year because her grandmother died. Same excuse every time.
When we called her out on her BS, she pulled up the obituaries. I'll be darned if she didn't have four lesbian grandmas! Really sucks to lose that many people in a year too...
1. Legwork
A guy in high school once gave the excuse that his mom had been having her leg amputated. I had met his mom and knew that she was missing a leg from long before.
Turns out, they were taking the other leg off after a horrible accident.
Sources: Reddit,
