Russell Gayer, author speaker
Remember the old excuse, “The dog ate my homework?” Teachers didn’t believe it then and they don’t believe “The dog ate my flash drive” today. As far as I know, C.E. Ayr is the only person who actually took dog feces to class to support his case.
Other popular excuses in today’s world include; The FBI confiscated it as part of their investigation into Russian tampering. I was abducted by aliens and they kept it as part of their research. A tornado sucked it right out of my Mom’s car. I’d love you hear any creative excuses you can add to this list.
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Iowa City Fire Chief, Ken Peterson, removed his helmet and ran his fingers through what was left of his thin, graying hair.
This was their third fire in the past week. There would be an investigation of course, but he already knew the cause.
Fortunately, a lady in the apartment next door smelled the smoke and called 911. His crew arrived quickly and got the family out alive. The husband had been asleep on the couch, but they had to drag the wife out kicking and screaming—crying about losing her baby.
No wonder Peterson hated November. Damn that NaNoWriMo.
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This is the blog of a woman who is seriously on the edge and I mean right ON the edge…no, not there… just a little bit further… further than that…no, further still…just a tiny bit more… just move slightly to the right a little…no, that’s too much…just move a tad to the left…that’s right, just there…now you’ve moved too far to the left… Damn, what part of the ‘on the edge’ do you not understand? Oh, and her matricidal boy genius, come devil spawn.
Or the three people I guilted into reading this blog, whatever.
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Dear Ken Burned-Out
“My dad’s a Sushi chef and mistook my homework for rice paper. It was surprisingly delicious.”
You made me laugh out loud. There’s reason I’m not taking part in NaNoWriMo so for me it’s NoMoNaNoWriMo.
Shalom,
Gabby “Gate Mouth” You’ll Pay For This One W(T)F
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Dear Gabby “Gate-Mouth” W(T)F,
I asked Jan for confirmation on your name, but he pled the 5th. Can’t blame him. As Connie once said, “Dynamite comes in small packages.”
Loved the rice paper excuse. Are you sure it wasn’t a Zig Zag and someone rolled it up for another purpose?
NoMoForMe,
Ken Burned-Out
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Dammit… I was just gonna use the Zig Zag excuse. Now I’ll have to find another…
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Hahaha! NoMoNaNoWriMo, that’s fantastic Rochelle. 5 out of 5 burnt toasts for you 😀
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Thanks, Varad.
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I laughed too. Well done
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Glad you got a kick out of it, Neil.
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You scared the heck out of me until I Googled “NaNoWriMo”. It wasn’t a human baby. Backups, baby. Backups.
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According to their website, this is the 19th year. I’m lucky to write 2,500 words a month.
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Yeah, I’d never be able to write an entire novel in a month. I’ve been just toying with a couple for quite a while now.
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HA! Isn’t it the truth with NaNoWriMo! Well done!
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Thank you, Miles. I don’t participate, but imagine people around the globe typing so fast their computer catches fire.
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“Losing her baby.” Now that was funny!
My heart aches for her. Only a writer can understand. My mouse froze up the other day, right when I was going full steam ahead. I had to shut down—and lost half a page. Oh, the shrieks and moans!
Excuses: My brother used it for a paper airplane and crashed it into the toilet.
My mom used the back for her grocery list and dropped it in a parking lot somewhere.
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We’ve all lost at least part of one of our babies (an arm, a leg, a really brilliant scene) at some point in our writing career. It’s devastating. The moaning and gnashing of teeth goes on for days. Perhaps we should hold a service for your half-page. Would you like me to say some words over it?
Great excuses. Both seem quite plausible.
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Glad you liked my excuses. Nowadays students can add, “My mouse swallowed my homework.”
The only words I want to hear over it are the ones that disappeared. 🙂 Perhaps you can rather tell me if, in 1957, wallpaper came pre-pasted or if you had to apply the past with a brush? Oh, the trivia one must mine in November!
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Can’t let a house fire get in the way of finishing NaNoWriMo – I’ve made it to halfway. My fall back excuse is: ‘It was there the last time I looked’ – I find it works in almost every situation, including homework that has somehow not been done.
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Congrats on even attempting such a feat, Iain. In my opinion, you’re a winner just for tackling it.
I spent 2 hours looking for a document yesterday. The file is there, but it’s empty. I cried at the loss of my baby.
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Handwriting everything down on hard copy is the future.
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It seems like you’re giving writers ideas. And in case you are, I say, you cannot start a house fire, and pretend it destroyed your 25,000 words. And at the very least, wait until the end of the month, so you can act like you’d finished the 50,000 words, but it was all destroyed by the fire.
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🙂 You’re on to me, Mandie. At least there’s no penalty if you don’t complete the 50,000 words, although I do recommend giving that person detention for the entire month of December.
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Ha! Easy to get attached to that manuscript – she should have saved it to the cloud! Nicely done Russell
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Let’s hope it was backed up somewhere. It’s painful enough “killing our babies” by cutting out a scene that you poured your heart into–only to realize later that it didn’t add to the story. Sometimes I copy and paste them into a little “baby cemetery” file in case I want to resurect them in a future story. So far, it hasn’t worked out.
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A good idea. I’ve been tempted to do that, but as you say when I have, I’ve never returned to their gravesides 🙂
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Ha ha – you got me, just as I was thinking ‘how could he be so cold about the loss of a baby…?’
Susan A Eames at
Travel, Fiction and Photos
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Glad the humor came through. Off to your site now.
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Having done a total of two… yes, TWO DAYS of NaNo this year, I can officially say it is my worst showing. Stupid idea anyway..
As for MY homework? I did hand it in. Unfortunately, my teacher says I must redo it because HER dog ate MINE… I dunno… something fishy going on here…
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Sympathies. 😦 The first week was tough for me. What is it when you want badly to do something and every resistant feeling in your psyche rises up in protest? I tell myself, “One paragraph. Just ONE!” Thankfully the next ones kind of flow out after. When I don’t get lost in Google, checking what books children were reading in 1957. 🙂
Hope springs eternal. Write your book in January when the snow in Montreal is two feet deep and nobody’s golfing. 🙂
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There ya go! I’ll just keep plugging away…
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Maybe your teacher was out of Zig Zags. 🙂
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Maybe…. especially at the time I went to school 😉
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I could never use that excuse; we didn’t have a dog. This really made me LOL! Poor Chief Peterson having to contend with writers! 🙂
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Yes, I think they have plenty of fires to fight without us setting keyboards ablaze.
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“The cat was sick all over my essay, but I still brought it… I think you can just about make it out. No…? Oh, OK then…”
Don’t do Nano what’s it. Maybe if I read that a best seller came out of it, I might change my mind.
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Nothing like a little cat puke to stall an assignment.
Even if you did get 50,000 words written in a month it would take several months of editing and rewrites to get the manuscript into submission shape–or at least it would for me.
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Haha! You made me laugh out loud! I wonder how many marriage break-ups have been blamed on NaNoWriMo?
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Probably several. I know it would cause one at my house. 🙂
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I feel a bit the same when it is NaPoWriMo.
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How big is the goal for that competition?
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So funny. Good job.
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Glad you enjoyed it, Linda.
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Grin, grin, grin!😊
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Blush, blush, blush! 🙂
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😂
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NaNoWriMo is a hazard for everyone, apparently. I know it is at our house! Well done.
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Instead of saving “Don’t play with matches” they’ll have to add “Don’t type too fast on keyboards.”
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I have never been good at excuses… telling the truth “I forgot” or “I didn’t feel like it”… are the best one I can come up with…
So good that there is no baby to be killed in here.
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“I didn’t feel like it” wouldn’t have went big with my teachers or parents. Corporal punishment was very much in effect in those days.
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What a laugh riot was this! Terribly enjoyed all the comments as well. Great write, Russell. Reading you is now turning into an addiction, a good one at that.
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That’s the nicest compliment an author could ever receive, Neel. Thank you so very much.
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Excellent!
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Thank you, Dawn. You’re woman of few words (which is rare), but I like the ones you choose.
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LOL
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I think anyone who calls their manuscript a baby is a mite too close to it. Someone could always tell the teacher the assignment was so good they were going to see if they could get it published. Good stories, Russell. 😀 — Suzanne
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Yes, “I submitted it to Newsweek.” I wonder how that would go over.
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I could not figure out why the fire chief was so cold about the baby . . . until I googled NaNoWriMo. Then I finally got it. 50,000 words!!! We struggle to get 100 words.
By the way, what do you roll in those Zig Zags, Russel?
Junior Jr.
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Glad you googled NaNoWriMo. It’s always positive to learn something new.
Why, I roll Bugler pipe tobacco of course, what else?
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Russell, you are so clever. I didn’t know what NaNoWriMo so had to look it up ( Well to tell the truth, Mike did but I listened very close to what he was saying! Very cute story and you make everyone laugh at least once a week!!
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Wow, you listened closely to what he was saying? Don’t you think that’s kind of dangerous?
Glad you saw the humor in it. 🙂
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How cruel to subject unsuspecting folks to NaNoWriMo! Pardon? Did you just say they participate voluntarily?? Why would anyone torture themselves this way?
Thanks for the humour ‘fix’! 😁
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Yes, they sign up for it without being held at gunpoint. Very stressful too, from what I’ve heard.
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So funny. I am doing NaNoWriMo this year, but I’m not writing at such a blistering pace. I’m two days behind where I need to be, so the fires here might start 28/29th when I speed up to make sure I’m a winner. Or I might just see how far I can get and be pleased I got so much done.
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I admire your courage, Sarah Ann. Better keep the fire extinguisher handy.
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We once had an office fire, apparently many a work worthy of the Nobel Prize was destroyed in it 😀 Thanks for the laughs!
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