If you’re a guy like me who is not a fan of the holidays, you might be worrying about upcoming seasonal obligations that you will fail to meet and for which you must create a decent excuse. Things like why you didn’t get a present for your mother-in-law, or why your contribution to the cookie exchange is in a container labeled “Bob’s Bakery.”
In my years on this planet, I’ve heard more excuses than a high school English teacher. Rarely are they believable or creative, leaving me to conclude that for most people it’s best to just tell the truth. But I also know that it takes an Eagle Scout to tell the truth all the time. I’ve observed that men typically craft world views that are blind to their errors, which suggests excuse making comes naturally to males. Women, on the other hand, admit their mistakes freely and are brutally honest about yours (or mine anyway).
So for the holidays I’ve decided to offer you men of Vashon some pearls of wisdom and gems of advice about creating excuses so that you don’t wind up being accused of losing the family jewels.
When crafting an excuse, you can either shoot for believability or creativity. Either way, you’ll be … how can I put this gently … lying. But you can either strive to get away with the deception or make up something so outrageous that people will forgive you because they enjoy your story. When it comes to outrageousness, you’ve already got an edge because you are from Vashon. People already expect you to be a wacko, and you needn’t disappoint them!
Excuses fall into two categories: A) those that involve only you, and B) those that blame someone else. Any knucklehead can craft a Category B excuse. What you need to master is Category A excuses, because those are the ones that are least likely to backfire. Just think of all those Category B excuses you’ve already used and how ineffective they were. Classics like “my mother died” or “my dog ate the paper” or “my sister is pregnant” or “my father died” or “my sister ate the paper” or “my father is pregnant.” Everyone has heard those, and your recently deceased mother may be reincarnated at the cookie exchange.
A truly effective excuse should cause the targeted person to feel sorry for you. For example, if you are stopped for speeding on the way to the ferry, you might say “Sorry, Officer, but my gas-pedal leg seizes up from the Tet Offensive shrapnel I’m still carrying.” This excuse works on several levels, and has on more than one occasion sufficed to get me … I mean, a speeder … off the hook.
There are three components to an effective Category A excuse: 1) the setup, meaning the condition leading to your failure, 2) the impact, or how that condition affected you, and 3) the result, or what the impact caused. Sometimes one of these is “silent,” like the “P” in psychotic.
To prepare for the holiday season, make a list of possible Vashon setups and keep it handy. Here are a few to get you started: a wind storm or power outage, a flat tire, an out-of-service ferry, a terminal illness (later cured), a bad cold (practice your coughing), an attack by raccoons, sighting a UFO or the sudden onset of male-pattern baldness.
When someone reminds you that you were supposed to get a present for your mother-in-law for a party that very evening, you can pull out your list and say you were attacked by raccoons while fixing a flat tire in the dark on the way to the store to get both her present and a hat for your bald head, and the store was closed by the time you got your rabies shot.
It’s safe to assume that this approach will not work on your wife or girlfriend more than a few times, so choose your times wisely. And for those times when you find she is mad at you and you don’t know why, you’ll need the mother of all excuses, which is really more of an apology. Just go up to her and say with heartfelt sincerity, “Dear, I’m really sorry I screwed up. I hope you can forgive me. I’ll never do it again.” And then say nothing more. If she asks you what you are talking about, say “I’m sorry; I can’t bear to talk about it. Please just forgive me.” Provided you don’t repeat whatever it was that was bothering her, you can plan on a good evening. Make sure there’s a bottle of wine in the pantry, because you’ll need it either way.
— Greg Wessel is a Vashon resident, geologist and Eagle Scout.
