In our younger days, my husband and I sign up for a “boot camp” fitness class. This class is pretty intense and fairly expensive; if memory serves, it costs $300 per person for ten classes.

At the start of the first class, our instructor does a quick roll-call. She frowns and comments:

Instructor: “Hmm, [Classmate] isn’t here. That’s a shame; attending the first class is pretty crucial, because I go over some important techniques. Oh, well. I’ll call her later and see what happened.”

At the start of the second class, [Classmate] is once again a no-show. Someone asks [Instructor] if she’d gotten hold of her.

Instructor: “Oh, yeah. She told me that she got super busy and was unable to make that first class, but she swore she’d be here today. I reminded her that she’d spent $300 and asked if another class time would fit her schedule better, but she said no.”

Third class, still no [Classmate].  

Fourth class, ditto. And so it went. She never did show up, despite [Instructor] bending over backward to try to accommodate her. [Classmate] always had an excuse: “I got busy,” “I forgot,” “I got stuck in traffic,” etc.

[Instructor] even offered to refund some of her money, because she felt bad for taking it and not providing anything in return. [Classmate] indignantly refused this offer.

Classmate: *Defensively* “I’m going to come! I just keep having bad luck!”

As for my husband and me, we enjoyed the class so much, we signed up again for the next session. So did [Classmate]. And you can probably guess what happened.

I guess some folks just have money to burn!

A customer leaves a huge pile of crap on the side of our storage building. I know it was him because when I came in, I saw him put the all the same stuff behind his vehicle. My manager has him charged for the clean-up. He later calls asking about the charge. When I explain, he gets angry.

Customer: “You can’t prove that was my stuff. This is totally unfair! I wasn’t even at my storage unit today.”

Me: “Sir, I saw you with that stuff just this morning by your car, and you came into the office and spoke to me twice personally, so I know you were here, and we have you on video.”

Customer: “Well, that doesn’t matter because I didn’t touch the stuff. It wasn’t even my stuff. My mom was working with some guys I hired and they left the mess.”

Me: “Sir, it’s your storage unit, you were present at the time of all of this, and you are the one responsible.”

Customer: “But you don’t understand! I didn’t touch the stuff! I shouldn’t have to pay for the clean-up, that’s my mom’s and the guy’s! It’s the hired guy’s fault! All I was doing was sitting in my car and playing on my phone.”

I work at a serve-yourself type of candy store. A boy has put his hands directly into one of the bins and is playing with the candy he has grabbed. I walk over without him noticing and stand over him.

Me: “Please do not touch the candy with your hands.”

He jumps guiltily, and I can almost see his brain working to come up with a valid excuse.

Boy: “Sorry! I! I, uh… I… have… Attention Deficit Disorder?”

Me: *Bluntly* “So do I.”

Another customer startled me and I glanced away for a moment. When I looked back, the boy had already left the store completely. Yes, I do have Attention Deficit, and no, it is not ever an excuse to misbehave.

When I was in high school in the 1970s I got “stuck” in a different math class than I should have been in because of scheduling issues with other classes I was taking. I was a sophomore but almost the whole rest of the class was seniors.

Many of the seniors were not hard-working, let alone among the brightest students, and so we had to submit homework or some assignment almost every day. The teacher was a no-nonsense guy who was tough but fair and I had had him for a previous class and liked him.

There was this one total loser dude in class who never, and I mean never, had his homework done. Every day he had a different excuse, yes, including that his dog ate it. The teacher quite obviously — to me, anyway — never bought any of the excuses, though the loser dude and his buddies seemed to feel he was pulling one over on the teacher.

After a while, the teacher would start class where we had assignments due with something like this:

“So, Mr. [Dude], what happened to your homework today?”

“Oh, uh, [Teacher], it, uh, got sucked out the window of the bus on the way to school.” 

He drove to school.

Dripping with sarcasm, the teacher would reply, “Oh, no, Mr. [Dude], how terrible.”

Then there would be snickering among [Dude] and his buddies.

I saw the teacher with [Dude]’s parents at the next parent conferences and they did not look happy.

The one time I don’t turn in my work for my senior English class, I have a legitimate excuse. 

Teacher: “Where’s your homework?”

Me: “My cat dragged it into the other room, and…”

I don’t know how to say that she peed on it. 

Teacher: “Half points! Best excuse I’ve ever heard!”