Sorry, the cat ate my hairdryer (From Penarth Times)

Sorry, the cat ate my hairdryer

EXCUSES, excuses. We've all known for ages that women are the sneakier sex, but now official statistics have been released to prove it.

Of all the reasons British women use to take a last-minute day off work, it turns out that one in 16 have called in sick because of a bad hair day.

According to the Office for National Statistics, in 2001, women deprived their employers of 339,000 working days due to sickness or injuries.

This makes a staggering 21,188 days' skulking at home due to their hair. Reasons include colour or bleach disasters and home haircuts.

The survey also shows women in the South-East are twice as likely to skive off to resolve a bad hair day than those in the Midlands.

It isn't always hair - we're just as likely to miss work through hangovers, PMT, lack of sleep or just plain I-can't-be-bothered syndrome.

Some enlightened firms get round this with 'duvet days', on which workers can call in at the last minute without having to insult their employers' intelligence with a bad excuse.

For the rest, a little creative lying is used. There are thousands of excuses for an unofficial duvet day, and they tend to fall into groups.

1. Children and pets. Children being ill is an excellent reason for missing work - especially if you don't have any. More imaginative variations include little Timmy hiding or eating the car keys (works just as well for pets), locking himself in somewhere or setting fire to the house.

Pets friends can be equally useful. Real-life excuses have included the dog eating all the clean underwear, feeling unable to leave it home alone or having to spend quality time with a cat which gets destructive when bored.

Our favourite example comes from internet site the Mother of all Excuses Place. (http://members.tripod.com/Madtbone) A woman had missed a lot of work, and had promised her boss to do better in future.

The day after making the promise, she woke up to find her cat bleeding from a hole in its stomach, caused by a burst abscess.

She phoned to inform her sceptical boss of the cat's plight, and the need for an urgent vet visit.

"The vet was very accommodating and wrote me an official excuse. It hung on the boss's bulletin board for a very long time," she said.

"It read, 'Please excuse Sheryl being late to work today. Her cat had a hole in it'."

2. Injuries and embarrassing problems. It's easy to tell your boss you have flu, a headache or stomach bug. The problem is that they're predictable and can lead to awkward questions.

The solution? An excuse they definitely won't want more information about. Anything gynaecological is a good bet, particularly if your boss happens to be male.

Distressing descriptions of the state of your digestive system can have much the same effect.

Injury stories should be as long and insanely complicated as possible.

Don't just fall over in the shower - slip on the soap, trip, hurt your leg, bump your head, accidentally poke yourself in the eye, try to stand up, trip again, burst through the shower door, whack your head and arm and then pull the towel rail onto yourself when you try to get up. You'll sound far too pathetic (and injured) for serious questions to be asked.

3. Transport. Again, simply telling work that your car has broken down can lead to awkward conversations in which you are called on to explain why you can't use public transport or take a taxi.

Public transport is also an unreliable excuse, especially if you're not the only one using it. It's no good complaining, as one lecturer at my college in London regularly did, that the Underground made you an hour late, if your colleagues or class use the same route and are on time.

The trick is, blame something that can't be checked.

If you're just back from holiday, take an extra day and say your flight was cancelled. Or turn up late and say your car keys went missing and you had to hitch-hike.

On Friday the 13th, say you drove to work extra slowly for fear of crashing.

4. Things breaking. Waiting in for plumbers, builders or repair men is a classic. Add an emergency touch by saying you were defrosting the freezer with a knife, accidentally stabbed the lining and had to wait for someone to deal with the poisonous fumes.

Alarm clocks going wrong is also a good one - once or twice. After that, questions will be asked.

5. Funerals. Just make sure you look sad, and don't lose the same relative twice while working for the company.