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I realize that some of you might object to this post. Let me reassure you that these are selected from long deactivated accounts at ResearchWritingCenter.com.

As you might infer, the main reason they are no longer active writers is their tardiness. Saying that they were endlessly creative in offering these excuses hardly captures it. There are literally hundreds of similar messages. I am actually considering creating a Hall of Fame for these folks, if management approves. Of course, I am joking.

These are listed in numerical order, so, if you want to, you can leave your vote for one or more of them in the comment area. Let us know which ones you liked most, and I will inform you folks which one is the “winner” – just for laughs!

These all come directly from the text of the messages, with minimal editing for readability, and an occasional comment.

1. “…I left my keys in the car and I closed it. I can’t open the apartment – so I can’t access my Mac. My BF has spare keys to my car! I will have to wait for him. He lives on the other side of the town, so it might take couple of hours for him to get here…I’m sorry, I’m really, really sorry.

P.S. You know I could have asked my neighbor to break in to my apartment. He’s a big guy, and probably can smash the door to pieces. But you do realize that I will have to pay for the door to be repaired. And that’s not worth it…” – One actually feels sorry for her.

2. “I’m stuck on a tree, and there’s water all around. It’s hard to reply right now. And sorry for not responding to the phone call – hands were busy” – This was a text from one of the former writers. We tried to find out what happened, but didn’t get a reply: he was deactivated some time later.

3. I got this story from one of the Support reps: They called a writer, and he said that his laptop was struck by lightning and that he can’t work with us anymore, because he was not able to complete the order because of that. Furthermore, he said he had no money for another laptop, or any other kind of a computer. He actually tried to register later on (in 2 days) using a different identity. However, we request phone numbers, and when the QA rep was making a verification call she recognized his voice. Talk about a “master of disguise”

4. “I had to leave my house because it had to be cleaned by an extermination unit – we had some sort of bugs in our walls. I forgot to take my laptop and the exterminator told me that I can’t take it, because some of the chemicals used form residue and that could be potentially harmful for me! Sorry, but I have to stay healthy – I have another part time job and I can’t risk both.”

5. “I had a personal issue that prevented me from completing the order on time” – This looks pretty ‘legit’, if the correspondent had added any explanation. This fellow, however, had around 10-15 orders. On 10 of those, he was late, and every time he was late – the excuse was the same! Literally! He didn’t even change any words or provide any further detail or reason. He just kept telling us that the matter was really personal and he couldn’t really tell us about it.

I’m definitely going to go back and ‘mine’ the other deactivated profiles for more good stuff like this. It took me a fair amount of time researching the profiles in order to extract these examples, so it might actually be a while before I am able to publish more. I promise it will be worth the wait!

For now, please, feel free to cast your vote for the “best” excuse or the funniest, from among those listed above. It’s interesting to find out your opinion.