Funny Excuses

[Craig_Slocum]

There were some of the funniest excuses given on Dark Shadows for strange behavior, similar to the excuse "My dog ate my homework." What classic excuses can you recall, and who was involved? A scene that comes to my mind is when Harry Johnson goes upstairs at Collinwood to look for Carolyn Stoddard, to tell her that Barnabas Collins is downstairs waiting for her, and he catches her coming out of the closed off west wing with a tray full of dishes. She looks at Harry with a terrified look and her mouth drops open. To cover up her wrong doing of hiding Adam in the west wing, she excuses herself by snapping at him and saying, "What are you doing up here?!" He could have very well asked her the same thing, she was the guilty one!

[ProfStokes]

In 1995, Professor Stokes is waiting in the Old House foyer for Barnabas.  It's dusk, and when Barnabas appears from the basement, Stokes asks him what he was doing.  Barnabas fumbles for an excuse and says that in 1970, there was wear and tear in the basement that he wanted to examine to see if it had gotten worse.  He was so engrossed that he hadn't heard Stokes call to him when he arrived. I suppose it's a decent excuse, but the circumstances just felt odd to me.

Also, any time that somebody would come looking for Barnabas only to have Willie or Julia say that he was away for the day on business was a pretty thin excuse too.

ProfStokes

[Cassandra]

I remember during the last storyline when Willie had just been shot at the Evan's cottage and was mortally wounded, the sherriff showed up at Barnabas' house to give him the grim news. It happened to be 3 am in the morning and the sherriff found Julia there as well. When questioned by the sherriff what she was doing at the old house at that hour, she simply says she is doing research on the Collins family and Barnabas was kind enough to let her use his library. AT 3 IN THE MORNING??!!

I also remember Barnabas showing up at the hospital at 4 am one morning when he heard the news that Maggie Evans had died. When Dr. Woodard came out to greet him, Barnabas said he was very "concerned" since he was a family friend and wanted to know if it was true. I found this very strange, considering he wasn't even a family member.

[VAM]

How about the excuse that Nathan Forbes gave to Angelique about going  alone on a picnic . ..He was really taking food to Victoria Winters.

[Luciaphile]

Ohhhh, let's see . . .

Jason talking about his collection of padlocks when caught by Roger in the basement (although we got the impression that Jason really didn't care if Roger believed him or not).

My favorite has got to be the time during the 1968 story, though.  

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Julia has been bitten by vampire Tom and is languishing in Josette's bed (fully clothed and shod).  Roger is trying to get her help because Liz is having her mortophilia kick and Barnabas tells him that Julia has been staying at the Old House so they can work on the book.  

He's obviously completely unaware of just how lame and bad that sounds and Roger just sort of looks at him.

Luciaphil

[Raineypark]

Cassandra said:

"I remember during the last storyline when Willie had just been shot at the Evan's cottage and was mortally wounded, the sherriff showed up at Barnabas' house to give him the grim news. It happened to be 3 am in the morning and the sherriff found Julia there as well. When questioned by the sherriff what she was doing at the old house at that hour, she simply says she is doing research on the Collins family and Barnabas was kind enough to let her use his library. AT 3 IN THE MORNING??!!"

THANK YOU for bringing that one up, Cassandra!  It's one of my all-time favorite "You gotta be kidding!" moments.  The best part is that the Sheriff is so unsurprised to find Barnabas and Julia awake, dressed, and discussing family history AT 3 IN THE MORNING!

Rainey

[MikeS]

I remember the time Julia and Barnabas were hurrying to her room to retrieve her notebook of her experiments on Barnabas.  After Liz and Roger spied them starting up the stairs, Julia gave some kind of excuse about going to show Barnabas some changes to the architechure in the west wing.

[Tanis]

Architecture in the west wing, I thought the Classic line was something about etchings.  Maybe they haven't heard that one in Collinwood.

Tanis

[Cassandra]

The funny thing about these funny excuses is that people "actually" believe them! ?!?  Who can ever forget Angelique giving that whole "walking in the woods story to be closer to God," to Trask??    And Trask, who is suppose to be a witch hunter, thought she was having a spiritual revelation!!

[Paul]

:DI don't know if this an excuse or not, but whenever someone is missing and they come back even in the middle of the night or after several hours they say they were out walking, and everyone beleives them like it is the most normal thing in the world. Can't anyone think of a different excuse? I would hate to see what their feet looked like after all that walking. Paul

[Craig_Slocum]

After being questioned by Dr. Lang about the puncture wounds on her neck, Victoria Winters tells him she probably scratched herself. Did she really expect him to believe that?