How To Make Excuses

Robert
Treborlang
Australia

How To Make Excuses
When apologetic Mediterranean acquaintances in Valencia, Salonika or Alexandria exclaim in their sincerest and loudest tones: "I know I swore and promised to be here at ten o'clock, however the reason I am three hours late is due to a most unhappy chain of events," you can be fairly certain that a) the grandmother in question died ten years earlier; b) the douche-bag wasn't in the next apartment; and c) the flamenco dancer in the next room never had a chance.

  In Australia excuses are made in a very different spirit. Here such mundane and petty fibs would never pass muster. Excuses should either be on a grand scale or simply not made at all. People generally are mistrustful of those who do not get caught up in Harbour Bridge pile-ups and natural disasters. This is a dramatic continent prone to spectacular catastrophes and your excuses, likewise, should reflect the violent and unpredictable nature of the environment.
  "What happened?"
  "I've been trying to get hold of someone at the dress shop but the woman was caught in a flash flood over the weekend and hasn't come back yet. I phoned the sales manager with the courier company but his father-in-law had just been struck by lightning. And the girl from the hotel I gave the money to has flown off to Cachexia in Brazil to look for her missing children."
  "What about the theatre tickets?"
  "Oh, my God! I must've lost them in the ambulance...!"

  Australians tend to be mistrustful of those who admit their faults or tell the truth regarding some personal secret. You cannot say: "I forgot" or "I made a mistake." What you say instead is "everything got out of hand, my uncle ran down to the beach to save all those beached whales and then thought he was having a heart attack in the middle of it all just as the news helicopter crashed into the cliff and set fire to the light-house."

  A simple confession or admission of guilt in an excuse just won't do. Those who tell the truth are not only frowned upon but are also regarded with suspicion as high-risk liabilities. No matter how implausible, preposterous or fancy a story may sound, it is always preferable to the unvarnished dull boring truth.

  "After all," friends explained, "there is no guarantee that anyone who tells the truth today, won't do it again tomorrow."

In many countries you are not expected to keep promises. In Australia, a country strong on Protestant ethics and Catholic conscience, you are. So how does one get out of them? How do you explain why the delivery cannot be made on time and in the quantities expected?
  "I've got a teeny problem with this item. There has been a bit of a production hiccup - the workers walked out on me and set fire to the factory, looters took most of the stuff and the police pinched the rest" - might be a dandy excuse in Caracas but in Collingwood it makes a little too much sense. Go for the lateral approach.
  "I was just about to fulfill the order when my partner developed MS in the middle of a Malaysian landslide, my secretary was washed away in a Kiama blow-hole incident that took the office laptop and her Indian husband as well, the Cafe Bar got legionnaire's disease from the air-conditioning and the Council discovered all this asbestos in our walls."

  Now observe a very simple rule emerging from all all this. The more monstrous and unbelievable an excuse, the more likely it is to be taken as fact.

For things that haven't been done
  "It's all ready, waiting for you."
  "Great!"
  "But I don't know where my assistant put it."
  "I'll call back in an hour."
  "Actually she's not coming back today."
  "See you tomorrow then."
  "The truth is I gave her the sack."
  "So, how are you going to find it?"
  "I might give the police a ring."
  "The police?"
  "She could have been carrying it when they fished out her body."

For things you have no intention of doing
  "I'm afraid I haven't had a chance yet."
  "But you said Monday."
  "Sorry, I've had a dreadful morning."
  "Shall I ring back tomorrow?"
  "As a matter of fact the other chap's gone off sick and I'm on my own here at the moment."
  "At the end of the week perhaps?"
  "Actually, we've had a lot of trouble with the computer."
  "Next week then?"
  "Well, that's when we're supposed to have the auditors in."
  "How about a month from today?"
  "We'll be moving premises then."
  "What about December?"
  "What about if I ring you ?"
  "When?"
  "Let's make it next year just to be safe."

The truth is that the real aim of an excuse in Australia is to show people how much you respect them. The more important they are, the more elaborate your story. Conversely, of course, you only tell the abrupt truth to those you hold in low esteem.

Copyright © 1991-2002 - Robert Treborlang

Robert
Treborlang
Australia

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