They say that “honesty is the best policy,” but some people clearly never got that memo! To these folks, lying is nothing short of an art form, and even a way of life. From assertions where the contrary evidence is available right in front of our eyes to outlandish claims that simply don’t pass the basic smell test of plausibility, there is truly no limit to the number of ridiculous falsehoods that people will swear to as the truth. Here are 50 stories about some of the most outrageously obvious lies that people have ever heard someone tell.
1. Ain’t It Funny How Time Slips Away?
The first watch that I ever owned was very special to me. It was an Omega, and I had saved up a ton of money for months back in high school in order to be able to get it. During class one day, one of my good friends asked if he could wear it for the rest of the period. He promised that he would give it back right at the end of lunch.
He begged and begged me for a chance to wear it. So, being a high school kid who didn’t really know how to say no, I finally caved and said, “Okay, I guess. Just make sure you give it back.” Weak on me, obviously. But boy, did I learn my lesson. When lunch was over and he brought it back to me, I looked at the watch and I was shocked. I could have beat him up right then and there.
Apparently, he smashed the glass to test it and see if it was truly unbreakable like he had heard. He hit it as hard as he could and completely destroyed it. He then assumed it was a fake and that this was why the glass had cracked. When he brought it back to me and I confronted him about why it was broken. He tried to claim that he had never smashed it and that it had just fallen apart on its own.
Needless to say, I didn’t believe him for a moment. That jerk grew up and went on to become a medical doctor. He is now involved in politics and holds state office. I’m still angry about the watch. To this day, he has never admitted that he broke it. I suspect that he was salty and jealous of me having the watch all along. He was a total jerk then, and he’s still a total jerk now.
2. Putting Himself In Your Shoes
I knew that I was hearing an obvious lie when a coworker started to tell me my own story and tried to pass it off as his own. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he then did the same thing with the same exact story a second time. That’s right, he did it twice. Like, dude, I think I can remember that this stuff happened to me and not you. I guess the guy forgot where he had heard the story from…
3. The New French Revolution
I speak French as a second language, though I’m slowly starting to lose the skill due to lack of use on my part. But I digress. While my skills in the language were still pretty good, one of my college guy friends started dating a girl who claimed to be from France. He was excited because she could talk to me in her native language and I could help translate.
So he brought her to a party at my sorority house and introduced us to one another. I greeted her in French with a very simple set of phrases: “Bonjour, bienvenue, comment ça va?” This literally just means: “Hi, welcome, how are you?” I got a blank stare and a red face from her in response. She then said, in what I thought was a kind of strange accent, that she was sorry, but that she didn’t understand me.
I looked at the guy and said: “I thought you told me she was French?” I figured maybe she was actually a different nationality and that my friend had gotten confused. He looked over at her and she immediately turned and left. He followed her. Then, a little bit later, he returned and said he had caught up to her. What happened next was shocking.
She started screaming at him in perfect, Midwestern-accented English that he was a jerk for setting her up to look like a fool. He had genuinely been excited that he could introduce her to someone she could talk to, so he was blown away by her accusations. She apparently felt that faking an accent would make her more appealing or something.
I would see her around on campus after that, but she always avoided me like the plague. To be honest, I felt pretty bad for her at that point. But, in fairness, if you’re going to try and fake something like that, at least pick a country with a language that you can speak! It was probably the least effort I’d ever seen put into a lie of that kind of magnitude.
4. Band On The Run
When I was a kid, the internet wasn't a thing yet. So, my friends were whoever happened to live in the same neighborhood as me. One kid from down the street was a well-known liar and exaggerator. We were maybe about fourteen years old at the time when he started telling everyone he could play guitar. He was always talking himself up and bragging about "his band."
I remember that he actually could play reasonably well, but his "band" did not exist. One day, I dialed his house number, hoping to get a hold of him. I don't remember what the call was initially about, but a few minutes into the conversation, he told me, "By the way, I'm in Florida right now with my band." He said this just completely out of the blue.
Now, keep in mind that this was before pagers were even a thing, let alone cell phones. I also called his house number. I didn’t even know how to react to such an obvious and ridiculous lie as that. So I just said something like, "Uh-huh, okay." I then ended the conversation and immediately proceeded to tell all the other kids in the neighborhood about what had just happened.
5. Open Sesame
My sister's garage door wouldn't open for some reason. My husband went to check the opener and he noticed that there was a huge dent in the garage door. The dent was the exact height of the car's bumper. You know, the car that was parked inside that very garage! Nevertheless, my sister swore that she did not attempt to back out of the garage without opening the door.
6. Working Things Out
My friend once told me that getting a Peloton machine changed her life forever. She claimed that it had completely revolutionized her lifestyle and that she was now working out regularly thanks to it. But what she didn’t realize was that I had access to her statistics as a fellow user. I looked up her workout statistics and discovered that she had not been honest with me AT ALL…
Apparently, she had only used the machine a whopping total of four times in the more than five months that she had owned it for. Her husband fared a little better than that, having used it a total of nine times. I don't know why this annoyed me so much, but it did. The lie was so easy for me to check. Like, why would you think I would fall for that?
7. Letting The Cat Out Of The Bag
A few years ago, my little girl and I were shopping together at the local supermarket. To keep herself entertained while we were there, she started going up to various strangers and informing them that she was sad because our family cat had just passed. The only problem was that we didn’t own a cat, and we never did.
So, from my perspective at least, this was a pretty obvious lie…
8. A Long, Long List
I once dated a girl who was a pathological liar. I didn't know that this was actually a thing at the time. When my dad originally told me about the existence of this condition, I thought he was exaggerating. Ironically, I thought he might be lying. After leaving the relationship, though, I realized how ridiculous all of the constant lies were and how stupid I was for believing them.
Among the lies: One time, she called out of work because, according to her, she was on her parents’ boat out in the ocean and the boat ran out of gas, so they had to call a friend to rescue her and her family and tow them to shore. I found out later it was actually because she had spent the previous night at a party and was completely wasted.
Her most ridiculous lie? She claims that she met Donald Trump back in 2013 or so and that she had hung out with him and his associates in Atlantic City. They allegedly invited her and her friend to join them as they drove around Atlantic City visiting his casino, eating the best food in town, and drinking top-shelf drinks. She didn't have to pay for anything the entire night.
She got mono when we were dating, but I was fine. She said that it was "anxiety-induced mono" according to her doctor, which allegedly explained why I didn't have it. This was around the same time that she had told me that she met some guy at a party who was hitting on her, but she swore she didn't hook up with him. I believed her yet again. And then I found out a week later that she was lying.
This next part is actually true, though. She was previously engaged, but she called off the engagement at the last minute. She then went to the nearest pawnshop to pawn off her engagement ring and used the money to buy drinks for herself. She totaled three cars in her lifetime, but each time she was able to convince the insurance company that it wasn't her fault so that she would basically get a free car replacement each time.
9. You Make Me Feel So Young
Many years ago, back when I was in the fifth grade, a friend of my little group used to always try and convince us that he was friends with the band “Sublime.” He claimed that they used to hang out regularly. Among other outlandish stuff, he said that he was the person featured on the cover of their self-titled album.
He also claimed that he used to use substances with them and that he even tried an extremely expensive and dangerous substance on one occasion at one of their parties. Again, keep in mind, we were all freaking eleven years old at the time. He said all that stuff happened two years before he even moved to our school... when he would have literally been nine.
So yeah, a freaking nine-year-old did all this wild stuff with a world-famous band. That sounds fully believable and realistic, right? We constantly called him out on his lies, but he would just continue to lie and make up more ridiculous stuff out of thin air. He always found some way to cover up for whatever holes we were pointing out in the story.
We eventually stopped hanging out with him, because he was so clearly full of you know what.
10. But Tell Us How You Really Feel
The most obvious lie that I’ve ever heard anyone tell came from my mom. I was eleven years old at the time. My foolish, childish self had just accidentally destroyed her favorite decorative vase by throwing my brother’s stuffed animals around the living room like a madman. Immediately after this incident, she uttered the lie: “I'm not mad.”
11. A Very Dog-Matic Belief
The greatest and most obvious lie that I’ve ever heard someone tell was: “I swear, I did not feed your dog any human food!” This was uttered by my mom, while my dog was literally puking and pooping right in front of our eyes. He made a huge mess all over my house, yet my mom still would not take responsibility for it or admit the mistake that she had so obviously made.
12. The Mark Of The Beast
When my friend was an infant, her older sibling was two years old. One day, they were left together in her crib while their mom had briefly left the room. When their mom came back a couple of minutes later, my infant friend was crying her head off. She had visible teeth marks all over her forehead. When her mom asked the older sibling what had happened, the older sibling calmly said, "She bit herself."
Quick thinking there, older sibling!
13. This Claim Is Falling Flat
I used to work with a guy who was a serial liar. He pretty much could not tell the truth if his life depended on it. It was pathological, and you’d be surprised at how often the lies were just so transparent and obviously fake. He told so many memorable lines, but this one would have to be my personal favorite. Let me start by giving you some of the important background information.
Now, in the National Football League’s Scouting Combine, where they test the athletic abilities of some of the top athletes in the country, the 40-yard dash is the standard for speed. 4.5 seconds is great. 4.4 is elite. And the fastest time ever recorded I believe 4.24 seconds. That record was recorded by a star football prospect who was considered extremely unique and talented.
Now, keeping those facts in mind, allow me to inform you that this yutz I worked with claimed that back in his army days, he ran a 4.2 flat. In combat boots. Let’s just say I’m a little bit skeptical…
14. A Whole Other World
I used to have a friend that would regularly spew out total nonsense all the time. She once tried to tell me that her biological parents, who live together, were secretly divorced and seeing other people, and also that she had 25 secret siblings. I innocently brought the subject up to her mom one time, which turned out to be a very interesting conversation…
She also told us that she had a terminal case of cancer, and then a week later it was miraculously cured.
15. Parents Just Don’t Care
My parents always claimed that they “didn’t play favorites” between me and my siblings. I consider this to be one of the most blatant lies that I’ve ever been told. Allow me to explain why. My older brother used to always get presents on my birthday, not to mention on his own. Meanwhile, I had specifically been asking for a particular action figure from the cartoon "Street Sharks" for a long time.
I made it very clear to my parents that this was what I wanted for my birthday. I even showed my mother the exact toy that I was referring to when we were out shopping one day. Fast forward to the day my birthday arrived—I opened my presents to discover that I got clothes and new shoes, while my brother got the action figure that I asked for!
My grandma was so enraged at my mom when she found out about this. So she immediately took me to Toys R Us to pick out toys for myself. But that’s not the end of this story. It’s only the beginning. When I was 23 years old, my family once again asked what I wanted to do for my birthday. I said I just wanted to have a simple steak dinner together as a family.
Did my parents listen? Of course not! We had spaghetti and vegetarian meatballs because that was what my brother wanted to have. There was not a single steak anywhere in sight. Another terrific birthday memory for me! Also, when the Xbox 360 gaming system came out, I was in high school. I shared a room with my brother, but I had a job and he didn't.
I used my own money that I had saved up to buy a new TV and an Xbox with one of my first ever paychecks. I came home one evening after work and was so excited to play Borderlands. I got to my room and the Xbox was gone. I made some inquiries and learned that my brother had taken it to his friend’s house. But wait—it gets worse. When I told my dad about it, he simply shrugged and told me to "just deal with it."
So I decided to take a walk outside to clear my mind and calm myself down from the anger and stress. I opened up my stash jar to discover that all of my stuff and over $200 worth of cash was completely gone. Obviously, I couldn't confront my dad about my stash jar, but when I told him my money was missing, he blamed it on me and said I must have lost it.
That night, when my brother came home, he was wearing a brand new jacket and matching shoes. He was also carrying leftovers from a restaurant. That was the last straw for me. I completely lost it and beat the heck out of him. Eventually, my dad had to call the authorities to have me hauled away. I was briefly put behind bars as a result of this call.
Despite all of this, my parents continued to claim that they did not pick favorites. This moment was a bit of a turning point for me though. I began to accept that there was nothing I could do about this unfortunate situation, and I just relied on the good wishes of those who cared about me to get me through all the nonsense that my parents put me through. For a long while, I stopped talking to my parents entirely.
Sadly, the story has a very tragic and unexpected ending. To everyone’s shock and horror, my brother took his own life six years ago. This took everyone completely by surprise. Needless to say, this event drastically changed my dad's attitude and entire outlook on life. As a result, he and I have somewhat reconciled with each other.
I'm still not in any contact whatsoever with my mother, and I strongly feel that this will never change. My grandparents all passed a few years ago, and that was the last time I ever saw any of my mom’s side of the family. After that night in juvenile hall, I was released back to my dad and had two years of probation. The Xbox was there when I returned home, but I never saw the $200 or my stash ever again.
I got a locked safe after that and I’ve been very protective of all my property ever since. Some experiences just stay with you forever. It’s been many years since my childhood though, and I'm in a much better place now emotionally. I have my own son, who I adore. And I spend all my free time making sure that he's as happy as can be because I'll never be the parent that I had growing up.
I will never lie to my kids, or even dream about treating them differently and playing favorites.
16. The Elephant In The Room
Back when I was in high school, a buddy of mine once tried to assure me that he didn’t swipe our other buddy’s watch as he had been accused of doing. The only problem was that he forgot he was wearing that very watch when I asked him about it. So yeah, the immediate and obvious presence of contradictory evidence sort of made his claim difficult to accept…
17. The Right To Bear Himself
A childhood friend of mine once met up with me for coffee. This get-together came after not having seen each other at all for a few years. During this meeting, my friend casually "let it slip" that ever since he earned a black belt in karate, he has had to officially register with the state every year as a "human weapon." Well, isn’t that impressive!
18. A Sign Of Things To Come
The most blatant and demonstrable lie that I’ve ever been told was: "I never said you had to sign the document if it wasn't true!" This was said by the same person who had just sent me no less than three emails telling me to sign the document, even after I said it wasn't true. Those emails were literally sitting in her outbox as she made this claim to me...
19. Showing Them Who’s Boss
My bosses once looked me in the eye and told me, "We cannot afford to give you a raise right now, but we will compensate you as soon as the budget allows." I later found out that "when the budget allows" really meant "when you already have another job offer and you put in your two weeks notice." Somehow, I never fully bought their lie, to begin with...
20. Baby, You Can’t Drive My Car
In my job as a professional tax accountant, I am very frequently told all kinds of outlandish lies about how much money people make. People will go to great lengths to manipulate the appearance of how much they actually made over the past year. This happens all the time, and especially during tax season as you can probably imagine.
My favorite incident of all time involving a ridiculous and obvious lie was when this one client of mine told me that he was broke because he only made $35,000 a year, even though he was living in a very expensive part of New York City. He tried to use this to convince me that my very reasonable fee was too much for him to pay. But the kicker? During his consultations with me, he had asked me for my opinion on whether he could deduct the new BMW 5 series luxury car that he had just bought for his son.
He literally paid for the car in all cash. Not bad for someone who can barely afford a small tax accountant’s fee!
21. Everything But The Kitchen Sink
One time, my little brother mixed like fifty condiments together. The mixture included things like sprinkles, ketchup, cereal, and a whole bunch of other random stuff. When it was all mixed together, he dumped it into a bag of popcorn and ate it. I have no idea what his goal was in doing this. Maybe he was trying to be funny or something.
Either way, the product definitely did not look like something that any normal or sane person would ever want to taste. Nevertheless, he tried to keep a straight face while telling us that his little snack was delicious. While he was saying this, his face looked like he had just eaten ten extremely sour Warheads all at once. He later admitted that he just wanted to try and get us to eat it, but we never did.
Nice try, bro! Better luck next time!
22. There’s No Defense For Stupidity
Back in the early '90s, I was at work one day making my five dollars an hour, when all of a sudden a co-worker of mine looked me straight in the eye and started speaking. He informed me that, apparently, he had just purchased a real, live, surface-to-air missile from the Chinese military and that he was keeping it secretly stored at his mom’s house in a different city so that no one would find out and catch him.
Like, what the heck dude? That story is not even remotely close to believable…
23. Scarred For Life
A waitress that I used to work with once said: “When I was a teenager, I got pregnant. The father didn’t want me to keep the baby, so he cut it out of me with a pocket knife. He didn’t get in trouble because he was the fire chief's son. There isn’t a scar on my body because I got surgery to hide it.” Yeah, okay. I’ll buy that one!
24. A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Cars
My ex once told me that he had been in a brutal car accident in which he had totaled his car and broken a few ribs. In reality, this was a total lie and he was just trying to get sympathy from me so that I would consider getting back together with him. He desperately wanted us to get back together and he would basically do anything to try and make that happen.
So naturally, fabricating ridiculous lies was no exception. He tried blaming the fictional accident on me, claiming that he had been "distracted" while he was driving as a result of our breakup. What a load of total and utter nonsense! When he saw that I wasn’t buying the story, he doubled down and tried to act all offended. He insisted that he could send me proof that the accident really happened.
The next thing I know, he sent me a photo of his car smashed in. I did a reverse image search of the photo online and instantly found out that he had taken it from a random website. It was not really his car at all. It was just someone else’s picture of a car that was wrecked that happened to be a similar make and model to his.
He must have seen this picture online and formulated the story to try and get my attention. I mean, it wasn’t a terrible plan in theory, but he missed one incredibly crucial detail. The wheels on the car in the picture did not match the wheels on his car. That little detail eliminated any remaining doubt that it could somehow still have been a picture of his car.
So, without giving him any advance warning, I drove by his house that evening. Lo and behold, the car was miraculously fixed and sitting in his driveway looking as shiny and undamaged as ever. When I knocked on the door and confronted him about it, he awkwardly mumbled a bit before saying something along the lines of: "Oh yes, I paid the shop extra to get me in today. I did it so that I could have my car available to come see you if you wanted me to!"
Hahaha. Okay, bro. At least you get an ‘A’ for effort on that one!
Shutterstock Car crash
25. Putting His Game Face On
I used to frequently play the board game “Dungeons & Dragons” with a confirmed pathological liar. As a side note, this guy had the most incredible luck that I have ever seen with twenty rolls! But anyway, I digress. This guy literally lied about practically every single thing that you can possibly imagine. Nothing was off limits or too outrageous for him to try and claim.
Another thing about this guy was that he always tried to act like a macho tough guy who had survived all kinds of serious scraps and such. One time, unprompted, he said under his breath, but obviously wanting us to hear, "I've got to get this shrapnel out of me." The rest of us all just kind of looked at each other in disbelief, and were just like, "Sure man, whatever you need to do."
But that wasn't even the worst lie he told us. We were taking a break from the game and several of us had just stepped away from the table for a moment. For a brief time, it was just me, him, and maybe one other person sitting at the table. The guy pulled out his phone and did that thing like in the movies where you don't say "Hi" or anything.
He just said something like "Talk to me," as if he was some kind of busy and important CEO that people were always rushing to try and catch on the phone. He proceeded to very obviously pretend to have a brief conversation with some imaginary friend of his. Just as the others were returning to the room, he ended his fake call with "I'm on it" or something like that, and then he hung up.
26. His Condition Comes And Goes
I used to have a boyfriend back in high school who would do all kinds of weird stuff for attention. That often included making up ridiculous and obviously false stories. I remember one time, our friend's parents were driving us home after a music festival and we were sitting in the back seat of their car. He leaned in towards me and dramatically whispered in my ear: "Help me!"
He then promptly dropped his head back pretending to pass out. I pretended I didn't hear it. After about ten seconds, he realized that I was ignoring him. So, he sat back up and tried again, just a tiny bit louder this time. He dropped his head back down again when he thought I was looking in his direction. A couple of minutes after, we reached our destination.
Miraculously, he was suddenly in tip-top shape and fully able to get out of the car. He hopped out and started acting as though he did not just try to put on some wild "He must be saved!" act, because he clearly thought that I didn't hear him. This experience confirmed for me that he really was as full of you know what as I had always suspected. We broke up very soon after this incident.
27. Keep Calm, And Lie On
I was friends with a compulsive liar in the past. The lies started with him claiming to have multiple personality disorder as a result of trauma from being kidnapped as a kid. I gave him the benefit of the doubt on that claim because, hey, that could actually be true. Also, I got to see his “other personalities” in action and they seemed totally legit at first.
But then his lying quickly spiralled out of control. Eventually, he was claiming to have been used in a cult’s blood ritual or some ridiculous thing like that. He also claimed to have held a dying kid in his arms as he was passing from this world. Mysteriously, the story of the kid’s passing seemed to magically change in some pretty big ways each and every time he told the story.
At one point, he claimed that he had to run away from home when he was a kid because his brother had tried to take his life. Also, we could always snap him out of his alleged “fainting spells” by mentioning the name of his favorite anime cartoon character. Kudos to him, though. Over time, he got a lot better.
He was eventually diagnosed with some bad heart conditions, which forced him to get the help he actually needed. This helped him start to chill out a lot, but at that point we weren’t really friends anymore.
28. An Experimental Treatment
I had a friend in college who was a serial liar. He just frequently said all kinds of crazy things. This habit must have satisfied some weird psychological need of his because I can’t think of any other reason why an otherwise normal person would have acted like this all the time. Most of the lies were harmless enough; just very obviously untrue.
For example, on one occasion, he told me that he had apparently developed a theory in his spare time about how to bend light passing through the air. He also claimed that he had pitched the idea to someone at the school’s physics department. They allegedly set up an experiment for him and proved his theory to be true in the process.
He was a general studies major. I kept pressing him for details like “Well, which professor was it?” and “What did the experiment consist of?” Every time I would start digging a bit deeper into the things he was telling me, he would immediately pivot to something else and change the subject. Nice guy, but I’ll never understand what the deal was with him.
29. Room And Bored
An ex-housemate of mine was by far the most chronic liar that I have ever met in my entire life! She was also a total nutjob in general. She routinely swiped my belongings whenever we were out. She swiped things from her workplace too. On one occasion, she even keyed my car.
But that’s probably a story for another time. Despite all her other ridiculous qualities, her lying alone deserves a whole slew of attention in its own right. Here are some of her most memorable lies, all from the short time that we were living together:
She claimed that her dad was the ex-CEO of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. She claimed that she was having a steamy affair with one of the shift managers at the bar we worked at, despite the fact that he was very happily engaged to someone else. She claimed that the venue manager tried to physically take advantage of her and that the security guards from our work knew about it but kept it quiet at her request.
She once pointed at a wedding ad on a passing bus and said that the model in the picture was her. Of course, the bus was moving so fast that I couldn't see the model's face clearly. How convenient! Another time, there was a car accident in the area that tragically ended the lives of several local teenagers. Even that horrid moment wasn’t safe from her lies.
She inexplicably tried to claim that she had been with those kids in the car that night but got out of the vehicle just minutes before the accident took place. She also claimed that she could do a bond clean all by herself, i.e. the very elaborate clean that you have to do in order to get your rental deposit back. When she told us about this alleged talent, we asked her to use it to clean our place out for us.
Long story short, we had to go back and redo it, because she literally didn't do anything right. She also claimed that her dad was a terrible person and that he mistreated her and her sisters while they were growing up. I asked her sisters about this. They all claim that this was the farthest thing possible from the truth. And, to top it all off, she also claims that she had her license to be a shift manager at our workplace, but that she didn’t want to tell our boss about it.
Now, this license she was claiming to have was a pretty lucrative qualification that was required by law to work in the management positions at the type of venue we worked at. Everyone wanted to get that certification and the opportunities that come with it. Yet, despite claiming to have earned it, she insisted that she wanted to keep it a secret so that she wouldn’t get promoted. She apparently didn’t want that kind of additional responsibility.
Even after all this time, “Wow” is all I can say when I think about this long list of her outrageous claims.
30. Gnome Is Where The Heart Is
For some reason, my young son takes every possible opportunity that he can to get undressed. It’s a struggle to get him to even wear underpants half the time. One time, we found him sitting around undressed in the living room. So, naturally, we asked him where his pants had gone. His answer? Bees. According to his story, bees came in through the window and ate his pants.
That lying little weasel! Everyone knows that it's gnomes who eat people’s pants!
31. Just A Bit Of Horsing Around
My co-worker once tried to convince me that centaurs exist. You know, those weird mythical creatures that look like a hybrid between a human and a horse? Yeah, she seriously tried to claim that those things are out there wandering around somewhere in the real world. She said they lived in a gated community in Hollywood and did all the horse stunts for movies.
Did we know that this was an obvious lie? Yes. But did she ever admit that it was? No, and I admire that about her. She always sticks to her story no matter what. Gotta respect the resilience, no matter who it’s coming from.
32. Cat Scratch Fever, Or Not
When I saw that my neighbor had a noticeable new scratch on her arm, I asked about it. Her response was: "Oh, it’s nothing. The cat just scratched me." Confused, I immediately responded by saying: "You literally don't own a cat though." She shrugged and replied: "My fork fell onto my arms then, or something like that." Okay, then…
I’m not quite sure exactly who or what she was trying to cover up for, but she clearly had no interest in telling me the truth about how she got that scratch.
33. Oh, How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning
I met someone who told me that he drank too much one night while he was out partying with his friends. He claims that he had an alcohol binge and temporarily passed into the afterlife. While he was briefly deceased, his intoxicated friends apparently threw him under a bed where his body was left to rot for a full three days before he finally came back to life and went on with his day as if nothing had ever happened.
He assured me that if I didn't believe him, I could ask his friends to confirm the account. Sadly, I haven't seen him again since…
34. Sounds Like Someone Has Bigger Fish To Fry
Back when I was only sixteen years old, I used to have a huge crush on one of my coworkers at my first job. He liked me back, too. I thought things were going pretty well between us until I asked him if he wanted to go out on our shared day off. He agreed at first, but then canceled on the day of and told me that it was because he needed to take care of his fish.
I thought it sounded suspicious. When I told a few of my friends about the excuse, they told me not to trust this guy. They knew him personally as well and they warned me that he was notorious for being a pathological liar. I was really upset, and I went on and on ranting to my friends about how rude it was of him to not even bother to come up with a believable lie to give me.
Now here comes the plot twist. A few of those friends that I had vented to were all hanging out and they decided to go to Walmart later that day. While they were there, they ran into my crush. And guess what he was doing—buying food and supplies for his fish. He walked over and told them all how excited he was about getting the new fish, too.
So, either he saw them coming and quickly scrambled to make it look like his story had been true, or he was actually telling the truth all along. Either way, I kind of felt like the biggest jerk in the world when I heard that.
35. Old MacDonald Had A Farm
One time, back when I was a teenager, my mom innocently opened the door to my bedroom closet and unwittingly stumbled upon my secret herb farm. She confronted me about it and asked: "What is this?" Panicking, I replied: "Uhhhhhh, I’m growing some tomatoes?" I froze on the spot, waiting anxiously for her reaction.
Her response was something to the effect of: "Right… Well, be careful with those lamps." She never asked about my tomatoes again. I never did find out what she had actually been looking for when she initially opened my closet. But I think it was safe to assume that she wouldn’t be opening that door again any time soon.
36. Come Fly With Me
"I feel good enough to work today" was the biggest lie that I have ever uttered in my entire life, and by far the most dangerous one. For flight training, any time that you fly, you have to sign off beforehand confirming that you are both physically and mentally fit to fly. This means that have eaten in the past six hours and means have had a ten-hour rest period that included at least six to eight hours of sleep within the past sixteen hours.
People lie about this all the time and fly anyway despite the risks. And, as much as I hate to admit it, you can count me as one of those people.
37. Wear It As A Badge Of Honor
An employee of mine once took a half day off of work so that he could attend a parent-teacher conference for his kid in the afternoon. He was supposed to work the morning shift, but he called in at the last minute and said that it had all been bumped up and that he could no longer come in for his scheduled shift in the morning.
Then, he kept calling back over and over again every half hour or so, each time claiming that the meeting was getting further delayed. This pattern went on all day, until he finally showed up at around 4:00 in the afternoon. He insisted that the school had now bumped his appointment up to 10:00 am the next day.
The kicker in all of this? While he was telling me about this, he had apparently forgotten that he was wearing a visitor's badge sticker from the school on his shirt that clearly said: "Checked in at 2:00 pm."
38. A Banquet Fit For A King
Back when I was a high school student, a classmate of mine once came up to me and told me that he makes over twenty dollars an hour working part-time as a banquet server. I had done the exact same job at the exact same place and made only $6.30 an hour. I told him he was straight up lying to me, but he was adamant that he wasn't.
I told him to bring me one of his pay stubs to prove that he really made that much, and he simply said: "I don't have one." How convenient! This guy just regularly lied about all kinds of stuff, but this was the first one that I actually made a point to remember. It was just too ridiculous to forget. I'll never understand compulsive liars.
For crying out loud, I’m pretty sure even our manager wasn't making twenty dollars an hour at that job!
39. Carrying Your Lucky Rabbit’s Foot
Back when I was only three years old, I once told this lie to my mom and thought that she would definitely buy it. I was coloring on the walls in the hallway with my bunny stuffed animal in my hand. I wasn’t much of a rule-breaker, so this one really stuck out to my mom. My mom came into the hallway and shouted: “What did you do?!”
I looked down at my bunny and immediately came up with my reply. “Bunny did that!” Mom, without missing a beat, replied: “Well then, please tell Bunny that he shouldn’t do that anymore because now we will have to repaint the wall and that’s not nice.” In full seriousness, I looked down at Bunny and said: “Bunny, you really can’t do that! That’s not nice.”
Meanwhile, I still had the markers in my other hand this whole time…
40. Fire And Fury
My supervisor was pretty annoyed with my crew on one occasion after we’d had some issues. She promised that no one would get in trouble if I told her the truth, so I explained to her who was responsible for the mixup. She immediately said: "Excuse me for a minute, I have to go to the bathroom." In reality, it was very obvious that she had gone to unleash her anger on my other coworker.
She should have taken them farther away if she wanted me to believe her lie, because I could clearly hear her yelling from where I was. So stupid!
41. When The Boss Is Away, The Employees Will Play
An employee at work once told me to my face during a meeting that I didn’t need to look over his task because my supervisor had already checked it over. I thought this was weird, considering that my supervisor had been off all week and left me in charge. He acted shocked when I pointed this out; like he didn’t realize I was aware of that. I’m sorry, did a ghost check your work? He didn’t think his story through at all.
42. Playing Ball
I once worked with a guy who was a compulsive liar. After working with several people like this over the years, I have come to understand that it is a very odd, yet very real, personality trait for some folks. This one guy was a New York Jets fan, as I also am. I asked him one day when the Jets were good if he had seen the playoff game the night before. This is where it gets interesting.
He told me that he was at the game. I know for a fact that he could not have been at the game because he was at work with me at kickoff.
43. Library Drama
The college administration has decimated other departments, but when it comes to our department, they’re “just” laying off a few staff. Not part-time librarians, they assured me. I had been working there for nearly thirteen years at that point. Within a month of this conversation, both of us were gone. I got rehired about five months later, but at reduced pay.
It’s been two and a half years that I’ve been back now, and agreeing to return was probably the worst decision that I ever made. But at the age of 50 with a serious mood disorder, I don’t have a lot of other options.
44. When Size Does Matter
I'm a plus size girl, and very noticeably so. One time, I walked into my boyfriend's bedroom to find a butterfly thong lying on the floor. It was a small size that would clearly never have fit me. When I confronted him about it, this dude had the audacity to look at me and say "Oh, uh, those aren't yours?" I actually started laughing out loud. No, genius, they most certainly are not…
45. Guitar Zero
This guy that I used to work with claimed he could get five gold stars on every song in Guitar Hero 2. At the time, I used to play that game every single day, and I wasn't even close to anything like this. The claim was just so farfetched. There are obviously people in the world who will have achieved this feat of excellence, but not him.
I ended up playing with him a few months later when someone brought a system into our place of work. After watching him play for just a few minutes, I became confident in my assumption. He turned out to be absolutely terrible at the game..
46. The Most Interesting Man In The World
I once worked with a habitual liar. Apparently, he owned a stake in a diamond mine, had met Nelson Mandela, had water skied the entire coast of South Africa barefoot, and could keep his eyes open when sneezing. But the very best was that he had shaped a lens by hand for a school project that was later sold to NASA, who then used it in a telescope.
47. Caught Red-Handed
One time, back in seventh grade gym class, I had to use the restroom. I went to use the one in the locker room. There was a kid at one of the lockers near mine digging through some stuff, but I didn’t think that much of it. On the way out, he was gone. I got a bad feeling about it, so I went to my locker to check on my stuff. A wave of anxiety suddenly rushed through my entire body.
My wallet, which had contained $17 in it, was now gone. The snacks that I had packed myself for lunch were also gone. I walked back out of the locker room and the dude was sitting on the bleachers, eating the snacks. I confronted him and accused him of swiping my money. He had the nerve to deny it while still literally eating my Pringles.
The teacher just said: “Nothing we can do, there are no cameras in there.” How pathetic!
48. Calling It In
When I was working as a public defender, I once had an incredibly looney client. On the night before his trial, this looney client decided to call up his victim from the jail phone. He repeatedly referenced what he had done to her in an attempt to intimidate her. When I was trying to tell him how stupid this was to have done, he gave me the stupidest excuse. He deserved to go to jail after that.
He claimed that he didn’t want to make that call, but he had been watching a movie on the cell block communal TV and someone changed the channel, which apparently drove him out of his senses and made him lose control of his actions. Sounds perfectly believable and legit, right? That idiot is now doing 28 years behind bars…
49. A Good, Long Look At The Man In The Mirror
One time, I was picking up a sofa from this random guy’s house. I found him on Kijiji and I thought that the item was a good deal, so I agreed to buy it and pick it up from him. When I got there, this guy stopped me right before I was about to leave. He said he just wanted to ask if I might also be interested in buying a mirror that he was looking to get rid of as well.
I wasn't really interested in it, but my wife seemed keen. So we followed him into his hallway to check the thing out. He showed the mirror to us and said: "It was a gift from my son in law. It's a beautiful mid-century antique. Since you guys have been so nice to me, I'm willing to let it go for just seventy-five dollars if you’re interested."
I indicated that I didn’t think it was something that I would have any reason to want to buy. He responded by going on and on about what an amazing mirror it was. He even told me to "pick it up and feel how sturdy it is!" I decided to humor him and pick it up. It was really very heavy, actually, despite what he had just said.
That probably should have been the first red flag that I picked up on. As I was holding it up, I happened to take a peek at the back of it. That's when I had my "gotcha" moment. Very clearly still on it, I spotted a sticker from Value Village with a thirty dollar price tag. I kind of chuckled to myself and decided to have a bit of good old-fashioned fun with this little discovery of mine.
So I asked the guy if he would consider going any lower than seventy-five dollars with his price. He said: "I would if I could, but unfortunately I really can't afford to do that." I then responded with: "Well, I can see a tag from Value Village on the back here..." I’ve never seen a person’s facial expression change so drastically that fast.
We ended up getting the "mid-century antique" mirror for just fifteen dollars, and me and my wife still laugh to this day about the amazing deal we got on it.
50. It Never Happened
I’m a doctor. The most obvious lie that I’ve ever been told is: “There is no chance that I could be pregnant because I’ve never slept with anyone before!” Spoiler alert: this patient was pregnant. I mean, what do you think is going to happen if you just deny reality like that? Do you think I’m just gonna shrug and go “Oh, okay!” and the baby is just gonna disappear or something?
Sources: Reddit,
