When students arrive late for class, teachers hear any number of excuses.
These range from the believable, such as being caught in traffic or illness, to the truly unbelievable.
So unbelievable, in fact, that teachers likely won't be able to help but roll their eyes at how ridiculous their excuse was.
Until they find themselves biting their tongue when against the odds, the far-fetched excuse turned out to be true.
Redditor MineCraftPlayer48 was eager to hear the wildest excuses teachers heard from their students which eventually turned out to be true, leading them to ask:
"Teachers of Reddit, what was the best excuse for being late that turned out to be true?"
Why Would Someone Lie About This?
"Hmmm, I had a student whose father had died and had not done any homework or prep for the geography class."
"From what I heard the teacher scolded him for not doing so, but the student didn’t want to say anything, presumably sensitive issue, so his best friend shouted at the teacher 'DONT YOU HAVE ANY SHAME, HIS FATHER DIED LAST NIGHT' and the teacher said 'I don’t care', there was an audible gasp and I was in the next room."
"Needless to say that teacher is no longer employed here."- 19you1
Sad But True.
"She had to take her sister to school and drive her mom to rehab."
"She was always late to class because her mom just wanted to sleep in."
"Problem was, if the mom was late or did not go she would have violated her probation and gone to prison."
"I never marked her late."
"If she missed anything important she could come in at lunch or after school to make it up."- Rm156
But They Still Made It!
"Student here, I headed into school early to get some studying done in the library before my night class."
"I was one exit away when I was caught in a 3 car accident."
"Most of the expressway afterwards was gridlock with only one lane left open."
"I did eventually make it into my lab class 15 minutes late, with a few scrapes and bruises."
"My professors reaction was simply 'Oh that was you!'"- AlienCowAbduction
Where To Even Begin?...
"Not a student, but one of my Teaching Assistants when I ran a pre-school in West Philly."
"'Sorry I missed yesterday, my friend shot my mom'."
"Naturally, I'm a little speechless."
"'Oh no it's ok, he was AIMING FOR SOMEONE ELSE'."- Scoutnjw
Yep, You Heard That Correctly
"I was one of about 20 kids who were late to school."
"We showed up at the school office as a group and when questioned why we were late, we said 'the school bus blew up'."
"They questioned 'ao the engine blew up'."
"The kids 'no, the whole bus, in flames. It blew up'."
"There was much conference between the teachers, all of them thinking we embellished the story."
"Next thing you know, one of the admin staff has the news website open, very obvious image of an entire bus on fire with a bunch of kids in our school uniform standing in front of it."
"Our late slip for class read 'school bus blew up'."- AusPB90
Caring Is The Sign Of A Great Teacher
"Former student here."
"'Sorry, boss, my stepdad tried to kill us last night and I had to deal with the cops'."
"Professor just looked at me for a moment and said 'dude do you want to like, go grab a drink and talk about this after class?'"
"Man, my English prof was a bro when I was in college."- DoughnutMcCoy
Biking Under The Influence?
"Told me he got pulled over by the cops for wobbly driving on his bike and they thought he was drunk."
"Turned out he was just dodging all the slugs on the street."- Fortisvol
Peter Griffin Can Relate
"A guy in my college class missed class one day."
"The next day he came in with his eye covered up and medical paperwork in hand."
"Apparently he got pecked in the eye by a chicken."- BrrToe
Highway Robbery!
"School sporting event."
"Kid on our team was late because someone stole his windshield wipers and it was snowing out."
"Kept having to pull over to the side of the road and wipe off his windshield."- wrstlr3232
All The Proof They Needed...
"Not teacher, but pupil."
"I was in a car crash on my way to school."
"About 5 cars involved because some jerk decided to overtake us since we slowed down coming to a turn."
"So a trip to the hospital to get checked, and then school 3 hours late."
"I had small cuts all over my face from glass flying everywhere and had a really sore shoulder, but my teachers wouldn't believe me until police showed up because they forgot to get a statement from me."
"Apparently some of the other involved people died and the jerk got 8 years in prison."- jogfx
No doubt, some students will go to almost absurdly great lengths to get out of being in trouble.
After reading some of these stories, however, maybe teachers will err on the side of believing their students.
For who knows, maybe the dog actually did eat their homework...
@winnieharlow/Instagram
@realDonaldTrump/Truth Social