Excuses, Excuses Winner 2018!
The Excuses, Excuses Contest challenges students to write a creative excuse as to why they were late to school, or why their homework was late. In that excuse they must include three random words drawn from a fishbowl; the words come from contest entries earlier in the year, like the Bad Writing Contest. The ease with which students came up with prolific and creative excuses surprised no one!
First Place
Words: Verizon, Vicious, Vibe
I was late to school because I was walking to school when Verizon attacked me viciously with their new Unlimited Talk, Text, and Data plan, and I got the vibe that they wouldn’t let me go until I bought the plan. Not worth it–was yelled at by my dad afterward for an hour.
—Avena, 7th, Green (Second year in a row first place winner!)
Second Place: Tie
Words: Spider, Warthog, Scissors
My homework was late because when I was cutting my essay out, a spider landed on my scissors! And because I think spiders are gross, I, of course, screamed my head off. My pet warthog was so started that he trampled my homework, ruining it. That is why my homework was late.
—Ashley, 5th, Gold
I was late to school because I had a nightmare about b words. Butterscotch, bees, (shiver) bellbottoms! Then I came upstairs this morning and Mom was wearing a bee shirt with bellbottoms while eating butterscotch. I fainted from fright.
—Mia, 6th, Green
Third Place
Words: Window, Zebra, Zookeeper
My homework is late because you know how I have that zookeeper part time job. Well… the, uh, zebra jumped out of the, uh, window so I had to chase the zebra down. Which took forever, so, you know, I couldn’t do the homework.
—Chloe, 6th, Gold