"I Fell off Faerieland" - and Other Wacky Excuses

Neoschool! That’s it! You rush up the steps, push open the door and race to your classroom, not pausing to catch your breath. All of your classmates have taken their seats and the teacher, a mean-faced Neopet with a short fuse, has already begun the lesson.

She points to you and calls out your name. “Why are you late?”

“Uhh,” you falter, unsure how to explain your tardiness.

You know what? It sounds like you could use a good excuse! Are you sick and tired of hearing your teacher scream while you stand there, five minutes late to class? Well my friend, you could use a few wacky, yet believable excuses to use on your teacher. You know what they say: A good excuse means no mental abuse… (which is detention, in your case)!

Okay, I know you must be eager to get started, but let’s commence with the basics:

Perfecting Your Delivery:

Keep in mind that it’s not always what you say when you’re explaining your tardiness… it’s also how you say it! Keep a straight face and steady tone. Make sure not to let your eyes wander--this symbolizes nervousness and uncertainty. Always remember that in order for the teacher to believe your excuse, you need to believe your excuse as well.

Part of that comes from the techniques mentioned above. In no time, you’ll be able to explain your tardiness perfectly and believably! Everyone should be able to have a good excuse once in a while. Seriously, do you really want to use, ‘I slept in’ or ‘I left my book and had to go back’? I didn’t think so. No, I am not teaching you to lie; I’m teaching you to stretch the truth. Trust me, there’s a difference! Plus, you don’t want a detention, right? Okay, so here we go:

Excuse #1 - “I was late for Neoschool because I fell off Faerieland.”

We’ll start with the one in the title. Now, we all know that it is impossible to “fall off” the cloud that is Faerieland. You could be kicked off, I’m sure, but falling off isn’t an option. What is it that holds the giant city of Faerieland on some fluffy white clouds? The answer: magic. The magic forms some kind of barrier preventing you from slipping off the clouds and swan dive into the pavement. But I bet your teacher doesn’t know that! Tell her you fell off and a faerie had to swoop down and save you, which is why you were late.

Or, if you wanted to get creative, you could say that Queen Fyora herself had to swoop down and save you, abandoning the Hidden Tower just in time for two thieves to break in and when you got back to Faerieland, you had to stop the thieves and--see, this excuse could go pretty far! ;)

Excuse #2 – “I was late for Neoschool because I accidentally switched my alarm clock with a Diddler, so I slept in because he never woke me up.”

Okay, this has happened to me once. ONCE. I was planning on taking my Diddler, (a Robot Petpet) to the Virtupets Space Station to replace his memory chip, when I accidentally picked up my alarm clock instead. You know, they both sit on my nightstand, so this is a very possible situation.

Turns out that the “alarm clock”, which was actually a Diddler, didn’t wake me up because he was snoozing himself. Next thing I know, it’s 9:00am and I’m still sleeping the day away. The key to this excuse is to make it believable. Seriously, I mean this Diddler/alarm clock mix up must happen to tons of Neopians, right? Right? Come on, Diddlers and alarm clocks… don’t you see the similarities? *clears throat* Let’s just move onto another excuse. …I still need to pick up my alarm clock, by the way.

Excuse #3 – “I was late for Neoschool because I nearly set the Neohome on fire by trying to cook breakfast for my family.”

Aww, how considerate of you to think of your family when it comes to breakfast! Of course, when you’re first learning how to cook on the Faerie Stove, you’re bound to make a few mistakes. You know, little things like burning food by overcooking it, forgetting to turn off a burner or not cleaning up when you’re finished.

Now this excuse is actually pretty realistic. Haven’t you ever had a little, er, mishap in the kitchen? Use it as an excuse! Your teacher will probably see the hilarity of a simple mistake… or extremely hazardous mistake, just depends on how you look at it, I guess. And you can use this excuse more than once since you cook your food more than once! No worries, the key word in this excuse is nearly, so setting your Neohome on fire to get out of getting to school on time isn’t a must.

Excuse #4 – “I was late for Neoschool because I traveled to Meridell to pick you (my teacher) a fresh apple to put on your desk. It was really, really hard to find since Meridell has mostly berries, but I finally found one. To my surprise, it turned out to be an Everlasting Apple! Just as I was about to bring it back to Neopia Central, a Grarrl thief attacked me but everything turned out okay because two faeries from Faerieland flew down and took the magic apple and everything was peaceful again.”

O_O You must be pretty good at delivering excuses if you think you can pull this one off. If there were a poll about how wacky some of these excuses sounded, this one would definitely get my vote. By the time you finish telling the story of you, the thief and the apple, it won’t matter because you’ll be off to class!

I have confidence in you! If you’d like to try this excuse for being late, then I can only hope that your teacher will think it’s so sweet of you to think of her. See, that’s the nice part of this excuse. You were late to Neoschool because you went out of your way to get a present for your teacher. Classic!

Excuse #5 – “I was late for Neoschool because I spent the morning reading this ridiculous article on different excuses I could use to explain my tardiness.”

Normally I’d run with any excuse you wanted to, but if you use this excuse on your teacher, then you’re on your own! Later!

Author’s Note: Thank you for reading and thanks to bewitched2 for editing. If you want to send me your comments, go right ahead! And if you’d like to use any of these excuses… well, good luck to you. I don’t advise you to, but if you’re brave enough then be my guest. Otherwise, this was just a fun/silly article!