One Last Chance
Students are notorious for making up tall tales for reasons ranging from lateness, to not turning in homework, and everything in between. And some of them take it way over the top. But what if some of these crazy tales were actually true? What if the stories about the horses and the tornadoes are really what went down…?
Nine times out of ten, these tall tales are students flexing their imagination muscles, but every now and then, one unfortunate student is telling the almost unbelievable truth. These teachers found out the hard way that crazy is sometimes real. Here are some of the most ridiculous excuses that ended up being true…
Ouch, That Hurt
College professor. Had a master’s student beg to do an independent study with me because the class he wanted wasn’t offered that semester. Was very studious first half of semester, and then totally ghosted me. As I am literally filling in the grade of “F” for the final semester grade, he calls me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but five weeks ago I was diagnosed with a glioblastoma. I’ll be gone in the next three or four weeks. I really appreciate you letting me do the independent study.” Reddit user: [redacted]
Bigger Fish To Fry
One of my close friends was failing law school while having increasingly intense headaches over months. Wrote to the lecturer asking for leave to have a brain tumor cut out. Lecturer called her out in the middle of their final class as a liar dodging the exam with a ludicrous excuse.
She actually did have a tumor that was surgically removed and was the size of a golf ball. X-rays and a concrete mixer full of humble pie. Reddit user: bildungsromance
It’s Always The Dogs
A student emailed me and said he missed the midterm because his car blew up. He sent a picture of himself with the burnt car and police in the background and he looked just so defeated. The email went something like this: “Dear professor pomegranatefresh, I’m sorry for missing the midterm, and this is going to sound like an excuse (see attached photos), 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. Reddit user: pomegranatafresh
Get Ready To Push
As a teacher, I get some pretty dumb excuses for homework not being turned in. My second year teaching 5th grade I had a student tell me that their dog ate their reader’s response journal so they didn’t have it. Now in my defense, this particular kid had said every excuse imaginable already, so I called their bluff.
That night I got an email from the parents that explained the situation very politely, and how they understood that I would be skeptical. For good measure they added a truly monstrous picture of their dog’s crap, with what was very clearly bits and pieces of the journal laced throughout.
As well as a picture of the dog at the vet from the intestinal distress. Needless to say, I revoked the “F” on that one. Reddit user: Ghost _of_Yharnam
Oh Meow
My mum once wrote a note for me when I was unable to complete a homework assignment because my after-school babysitting appointment unexpectedly turned into assisting with a home birth. Seeing a baby come out of a you know what live is about the best safe intercourse lesson a 14-year-old could ever have.
In a way, it was sort of like going to school, or at least to health class! The more you know, I guess. Reddit user: Miss-Indie-Cisive
Someone Press The Panic Button
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. Unfortunately, no one around had a spray bottle to teach those kittens a lesson. Reddit user: BrokenConcerto
Stay Away From Those Nuts
Last day of exams senior year, my dad goes out to his Dodge Diplomat, starts it, puts it in drive, and tries to disengage the handbrake, which comes off in his hand. He gets out of the car and kneels down to look at the brake mechanism, trying to reinsert the little handle, and unintentionally disengages the brake.
The car, being in drive, begins to roll away, and dad leaps up and tries to catch the runaway car by grabbing the steering wheel. He can’t keep up with the car, and the wheel turns as he’s pulling and falling behind; eventually, he fell and the back wheels rolled over him, crushing his ribs and collar bone.
The Diplomat went into the woods and got stuck on a tree. I had to flag down an ambulance in my underwear and call a classmate to let them know to tell the teacher that I couldn’t make it to my final because my dad ran over himself with his own car.
I realize how laughable this is when you’re not in the middle of it, but it’s certainly the oddest excuse I ever gave for anything. Reddit user: Fecapult
It’s The Truth!
Once, a student in my class missed a quiz because she’d had lunch with her boyfriend and kissed him goodbye afterwards, not knowing that he’d had a peanut butter cookie from the dining hall earlier that morning. Unfortunately she had a severe nut allergy, so even the minuscule nut particles left in her boyfriend’s mouth from hours earlier were enough to trigger a huge anaphylactic reaction.
She brought me her hospital bracelet and discharge summary to back up her story, but I believed her. Reddit user: lovetheblazer
Technology Isn’t Always Better
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 SPCA. 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! Reddit user: medusabites
Thoughts And Prayers
The elevator at my university’s library got stuck. The security guard said it would take three hours to get us out. The girl beside me starts panicking; she’s supposed to take a final exam in a few minutes. So the security guards called the professor to tell them that their student wouldn’t be there.
The professor was upset, but he calmed down after he learned she wouldn’t be at the final because she was stuck in an elevator. Reddit user: Noob_umbrella
At Least He Called
Student seemed to miss a lot of band events with the excuse that a family member died. I was starting to get frustrated, so I called their parents to verify. Sure enough though, they just had a hard semester, and they actually did lose five different family members within a three-month period.
All of a sudden I felt quite bad for even contacting their parents in the first place, but it was just so far-fetched. Reddit user: JohnStacy
Hit And Run
A professor of mine says the best excuse he’s ever heard for someone missing an exam was when a student used his one phone call from jail to call and say he wouldn’t make it. Apparently he has heard quite the number of excuses over the years, and I guess what teacher wouldn’t?
But that one definitely takes the cake. I mean, if you’re in jail, do you really care about your test at that point? Reddit user: MSOEmemerina
It Happens
I was the one giving the crazy excuse. I take the bus to school, bus driver hits a guy, guy is completely limp under the bus. The bus driver makes a series of calls. Ambulance shows up, a bus going the same route shows up 30 minutes later, everybody boards that one, and I get to school an hour and a half late.
I hand the teacher my slip and say, “My bus hit a pedestrian so we had to wait for another bus to arrive and the ambulance.” He interrupted with, “Just sit down.” I really think that he thought I was making it up. Reddit user: cowsaysoinks
Fire Damage
I spilled bacon grease on a completed math assignment and my dog ate it. You should have seen the look on the teacher’s face when I told her my dog ate my homework and then pulled out the scraps to prove it. Thankfully there was enough left of the paper to prove that I actually did it, and she gave me full credit.
Guess you can’t blame the dog for eating a bacon-marinated snack. It smelled good. Reddit user: PersonNumberOne
There’s No Place Like Home
I’m a high school teacher. Around 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. Reddit user: meatfrappe
First-World Problems
One of my intro psych students didn’t turn in her textbook study guide questions on time. She came to office hours afterward and explained that her textbook had been sucked up by a tornado and dropped into a lake. This was shortly after April 27, 2011 in Alabama where 64 people were killed and 1500+ were injured by a deadly tornado outbreak.
I canceled my class that morning due to the severe weather threat. However, apparently this student ignored the meteorologists and decided it would be a perfect day to relax and take her boat out on a nearby lake. She literally ended up underneath the pier cowering in fear and holding on for dear life as the storms hit.
She survived…but her backpack and textbooks did not. I let her borrow my spare copy for the remainder of the semester. Reddit user: lovetheblazer
Fresh Poo
A friend told me he was late for tennis class because he was stranded on a huge floaty unicorn on Lake Huron. Turns out he and his girl rode out on the lake and couldn’t get back. He had to call the Coast Guard because the unicorn was too big to drag back; for reference, it was 60lbs not inflated or wet.
Yeah, it was embarrassing to need to call for help in the first place, but on a unicorn floaty too? Reddit user: SarniaMelee
The Laughing Stock
My lizard climbed on my homework and took a dump on it. I tried to clean it off. I took it into class with a stain and put it in one of those clear binder things. Teacher was just glad I actually did my homework. I Wasn’t the greatest student.
Thankfully, she was super understanding and just appreciative that I had put in the effort. Reddit user: VientoSolitario
It’s A Magic Trick
It was my excuse. I had to drop a post-grad university class because I got a job as a wildlife surveyor, my dream job, searching for rare mushrooms in old-growth forests. I wrote my professor because I wanted her to understand and thought that we might cross paths again professionally.
Years later I went to grad school at that same university, and it turns out that she had shared that note with the Geography Dept. My explanation was literally posted on the bulletin board in the office as a joke. Reddit user: [redacted]
The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Someone I went to school with had a science fair project. His dad owned a car dealership. He said he put his science project in the trunk of one of the cars on the lot, and then his dad sold the car. So that is why he didn’t have a project for school.
Not really sure why he thought that stuffing his homework in a random car was a good idea. Reddit user: Five_Decades
Blame The Buffalo
I acted sick to my mom, saying I couldn’t go to school because I felt funny and I felt nauseous. I was 100% lying, until I blew chunks out of both ends that evening. Karma is a jerk. So I learned my lesson not to tempt fate by being a lazy bum.
Mom probably saw through the whole thing anyway and just didn’t want to deal with it and let me stay home. Reddit user: ajk999
The Ol’ Possum Ate My Homework Trick
My parents divorced when I was young. I split my time between living with them. Went to school with my mom’s suburban middle-class address but still stayed with my dad an hour away on the farm I was born on. One morning after staying with my dad, I left the house to find that our neighbor’s fence was down and all of his buffalo were blocking the road. I stayed to help.
Try explaining that to a principal of a high school surrounded by McMansions in Culdesacastan. Reddit user: pedalpaddlehike
Privileged Or Necessary?
Me. 7th grade, I’m a goodie-two-shoes, always did my homework, always behaved. I went out to eat, and I came home late and saw red piles everywhere and some weird sounds in my room. Next thing I know, a possum comes out from under my bed, glares at me while chewing my homework notebook, and promptly escapes out of my bedroom window, book still in tow.
I had a big report due the next day, and I was devastated. I told my teacher the next day; she didn’t believe me and was so disappointed I would lie to her. It took my mom calling her to believe me. Reddit user: Passion724
The Poopy Backpack
I’m a high school teacher, and I had a girl this year who refused to stop chewing gum when I asked her to. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal except she kept getting it on the desk, seats, and floor. She told me that she had to chew it because it was prescription gum.
It was obviously regular gum that she had been sharing with other students, so I sent her to the office for lying and defiance. She came back 20 minutes later with her mom (who is another teacher at the school). Her mom explained to me that she was suffering from anxiety attacks and had been in the hospital.
She had developed ticks from PTSD, and one of her ticks was chewing gum and playing with it in her hands. So she literally had a doctor’s note saying she could chew gum in class and play with it. Turns out the PTSD was from a situation in middle school where she sent nudes to some boy and they got around the school.
All the boys harassed her and called her names, and all of the girls tried to fight her for stealing the male attention. Growing up with social media is a jerk. Reddit user: p_velocity
The Tornado Took It
I’m not a teacher, but a witness. A 10th-grade classmate came in with no backpack. The teacher asked us to pull out our homework, binders, the works. The student couldn’t comply, since he had no backpack. The teacher asked why, and he replied, “My mom took a poop in my backpack.”
The teacher kind of just stood there for a moment, and then called the kid’s home. The father answered. I only heard one side of the conversation. After he hung up, he just went back to teaching. Reddit user: Kleindolph
I Lost Someone’s Eye
I asked one of my middle school teachers this. She said one time, she had a student who was habitually late. One day, he came in late, without his backpack no less, and the teacher was about to send him to the principal’s office. He tried to tell her that it wasn’t his fault this time.
“I was walking to school when a tornado touched down. I threw my backpack down so I could run away and the tornado took my backpack.” He took shelter and waited for a bit before continuing on to school. The teacher didn’t believe him and sent him to the office.
When my teacher went back home, she saw the student getting interviewed on the local news about the tornado he witnessed. My teacher said she apologized the next day. Reddit user: DarkKnightAKABatman
My Cow Gave Birth
My brother was a college professor for over a decade, and he’s heard quite a few excuses before. One time, a student said he was either going to be late or miss an exam because he lost someone’s eyes. The teacher had no idea what to think; maybe he was carrying someone’s glass eyeballs?
Turns out the truth of the matter was that he was a courier for an organ transplant group. Reddit user: ColdStainlessNail
The Police Took It
It was my very first day as a teacher, but I knew the kinds of excuses kids could come up with. I had a student come in saying, “Sorry, I was helping a cow give birth.” I didn’t believe him until he showed me the photos of the mother and newborn calf.
I guess in some way it was sort of a biology lesson, so there definitely could have been worse things. Reddit user: ladymchumperdink
A House Was On Fire
I had a student tell me the police took his trumpet away. I didn’t buy it. That was until I talked to his classroom teacher; it turns out it was in the trunk of his mom’s car when his dad stole it and ran from the cops. When he crashed, the cops impounded the car and his trumpet.
So yes, the police took a 4th grader’s trumpet. Or I guess you could say that his dad was the one who took it. Reddit user: Beeb294
A Broken Wrist
A local high school student was late and told the teacher, “Your house is on fire!” The teacher said, “Yeah, right, sit down.” Some of the other students ran to the window (the teacher lived two blocks west of the school, on the same road as the student). Sure enough, there were fire trucks, ambulances, and general chaos.
The teacher’s house was actually on fire; it took two years to rebuild. Why didn’t she just look out the window? Reddit user: ichosethis
There Were Wasps In My House
My drama teacher in high school told us about how the lead in the school play was a no-show on opening night, which was unusual, as he was a very dedicated actor who never missed anything. They didn’t have an understudy, so she was preparing to go on for him when an ambulance pulled up to the front of the school and he hopped out of the back with his arm in a sling.
He’d dumped his bike on the way to the school and had broken his wrist. He’d allowed the EMTs to patch him up but refused to go to the hospital because he needed to do the show, so they dropped him off. He also refused painkillers since he was worried about messing up his lines.
He did the show and then went to the hospital to get a cast put on. And THAT was the level of dedication she expected from us. Reddit user: shiguywhy
Horsing Around
During the first class of the day, a 7th grader told me he couldn’t do his homework because he spent the night in a hotel after their home was invaded by wasps. “That’s a stretch,” I thought. Ten minutes later, the phone rang. The kid’s mom had apologized for not sending a note but she’d just gotten a chance to call.
Yes, paper wasps built a nest in their exterior wall and somehow punched a hole into the house. The family was eating dinner when the entire floor level filled with wasps. Reddit user: robbythompsonsglove
Pinned To A Tree
A student told me he was late because he had to water his horse. I was skeptical because I knew he didn’t live near the school, but a horse? It turns out he straight up rode his horse to school every day. I don’t know where he parked it, but that’s Texas for you.
Everything is bigger in Texas. Those horses need a lot of water, especially when they are taking you to school every day. Reddit user: brazthemad
Hit By A Car
I had a habitually tardy student come in late after saying he was pinned under a tree. I found out later he was ditching the class before mine in the wooded area behind the school. He climbed a tree and fell, taking a huge branch with him. The branch pinned him at the trunk of the tree.
Security found him screaming his head off. Good thing he was okay though, because that could have ended much, much worse. Reddit user patter0607
The Bus Caught On Fire
My mom had a student that literally got hit by a car. The more shocking part was that he came to class with the broken rib he had gotten in the accident. What was even more baffling was that he was really apologetic. My mom was shocked he wasn’t at the hospital.
It is not your fault, bro! Go to the hospital and get yourself fixed up, for crying out loud, kid. Reddit user: [redacted]
I Fell Asleep In The Shower
Well I was the student in this story, but I told the teacher my bus caught on fire. She didn’t believe me until the principal called her to not mark late kids as absent because a bus had caught on fire and some kids were walking or waiting for a new bus.
I don’t really have any idea even now about why the bus caught on fire in the first place. Someone smoking? Reddit user: [redacted]
My House Burned Down
One of my most faithful, most dedicated organ students didn’t show up for his lesson. It was unprecedented. He told me later (obviously embarrassed) that he had “fallen asleep while sitting on the floor of the shower, just letting the water cascade over him.” His father later verified the story.
He was stating that he “caught his son red-handed with the showerhead spraying as he just sat there at the base.” Reddit user: Back2Bach
The School Was On Lockdown
My mom had a problem student who wasn’t wearing his PE uniform on their sports day. When asked why, his response was “my house burned down,” which just sounded ludicrous to her, given his usual conduct. I’ll bet you know what comes next given the question I had to ask to get her to tell this story.
She apologized the next day. She felt so bad that she had made the student feel guilty about what happened. Reddit user: FlorioLT
I had to show up late to my college entrance review without my portfolio. I was told immediately that it was a one-time deal and since I was unprepared, I had to reapply the next year. I told them that I couldn’t help any of it because everything was in lockdown with a live hand grenade at my high school.
They turned on the news and voila, I got a new interview date. Thankfully they were so understanding. Reddit user: TinyBlueFox