I tell tragic lies basically every semester to get out of difficult assignments for school.
Once I didn’t go to class for a month. I told my professor my uncle committed suicide.
I knew one of my professors was a huge animal lover. When I had to write an essay, I didn’t come to class until a week after it was due, and told her my dog of 5 years had been hit by a car, and I was too depressed to focus.
I told another one of my professors that I had missed their class for two weeks because my anti-depressant dosage was being upped and gave me really bad side-effects.
Some other lies: my parents were getting divorced after being married 20 years, my cousin attempted suicide, my sister/friend went into labor, I was relapsing into bulimia.
I don’t even feel bad about it.