Some people might go to extreme lengths to keep up a lie. Whether it’s a case of innocent deception or covering for something more serious, it might be too late to take it back. Or too shameful to reveal the truth.

Members of the ‘Ask Reddit‘ community shared their best stories of people trying to uphold their lies. We have gathered some of the most amusing or shocking examples here for you to enjoy. They might remind you why you shouldn’t lie in the first place. Or prove how difficult it can be trying to get out of the web you’ve created.

Read More: 35 Times People Had To Go To Great Lengths To Keep Up The Lies They’d Told

#1

One time in high school soon after I got my license but didn’t have a car yet my mom let me take her mini van for a night to a friend’s house. I told my mom it was a regular sleepover but it was actually a house party I was going to. On my way of pulling out of my own driveway I hit the garbage can with my mom’s sideview mirror and it shattered into pieces and fell clean off. I didn’t want to go back inside and risk her being upset and telling me I couldn’t go to the party so I just picked up the pieces off the driveway, threw them in the front seat, and took off to the party. I had a good night of fun and woke up so hungover I had forgotten that I even crashed the car beforehand. When I walked outside to the van I broke down in hungover tears of shame and anxiety. I hopped in the car and parked in a Barnes and noble parking lot and just cried and tried to think of a game plan.

I must have still been a little buzzed cause going home without a bogus story was overwhelmingly out of my scope of reasoning. I noticed a plow truck drive by in the snow and BINGO. With real tears and panic in my voice I called my mom from the parking lot and told her that as I was inside Barnes and Noble that morning (I never even went inside) a plow truck must have hit her sideview mirror with it’s plow and I didn’t know what to do, sob sob, cry cry whatever. My mom told me to pick up the pieces and come home.

I came home a hot mess, smelling of alcohol, headache, red eyes from no sleep and dirty with the stench of lies. My mom played like she felt bad for me and said “hop back in the car, we will go to the police station and report the accident. They probably had camera that caught the whole thing.” I felt like I was going to throw up as I stared the officer in the eyes and told him (half drunk still) this bogus, over the top, story I made up. He told me how making up lies like this could get me in trouble and said he would call back when the camera footage came back.

I didn’t sleep for like a week. I was terrified. Nothing ever happened from the ordeal and life went on and the car got fixed. Yearssss later I told my mom the truth and she laughed and said she saw the whole thing happen in live time and told the police officer ahead of time what was going on. She told him to play along and scare me…

Lesson learned.

#2

Not me but when I started as a newspaper journalist 20 years ago our leader writer was a man called Edward.

I only found out when he retired after 45 years with the paper that his name wasn’t Edward at all. When he started aged 16 one of the paper’s owners showed him round and had misheard his name.

He was too nervous to correct the owner so he went by the wrong name for nearly 50 years. His real name is Dudley.

Image credits: Jackamo78

#3

My partner and I pretended to be vegetarian for 10 years to avoid her aunt’s awful cooking. By the end we were actually vegetarian.

Image credits: MikeSizemore

#4

I once worked in a smallish and pretty casual office. There was a park nearby where I’d go for a walk at lunch and sometimes I’d sit in the grass and do a few stretches before heading back. Well one day I guess a decent amount of leaves had gotten stuck to my long sweater, I went to the bathroom when I got back and a handful fell on the stall floor without my awareness. Not too long after, someone comes out wondering who would put a pile of leaves in the bathroom and why. It blew up very quickly and spread around the office. I knew it had to be me. Being the “outdoorsy person” I was questioned a few times. At the time I was very shy with a back corner desk where I’d pop in headphones and do my editing work, I definitely did not want attention so I denied it and acted clueless when asked, thinking it’d end with the day. It did not. The next day, my manager was greeted by a small pile of leaves on their desk in the morning. It became a war, it went on for weeks. I was too deep to admit the truth now. Leaves on desks, leaves dropped on heads, leaves stuck to the backs of shirts. It finally culminated on Halloween when TWO women from different departments came in dressed as piles of leaves. I never said a word!

Image credits: EarthCadence

#5

I’ve spent more than eight years in the same residence.

My neighbours are quite welcoming. Every time they see me go outside, they say hello, especially the wife. Every time, she’ll wave, say, “Hi, Rebecca!” and flash a wide smile.

Rebecca is not my name. At this time, it would be too awkward to fix. I simply had to take responsibility for it.

Image credits: Wheaurk

#6

I had surgery for something that wasn’t even an issue.

When I was in middle school I enjoyed faking being sick so I was able to skip school, especially if that meant my parents were at work and I was all alone. I was able to make hot chocolate and play video games all day. It was a great time.
At the time I didn’t think much about the excuses I used, so most of the time it was just “sore throat”.

After having used that excuse several times over the period of a year my parents finally took me to the doctor to have my throat looked at. They did find one of my tonsils was noticeably larger than the other one and figured this could have been the cause of my issues. So they suggested surgically removing it. I was around 10 years old so I didn’t realize what surgery really was so I didn’t come clean.

A few weeks later I was on the surgical table.

To this day I haven’t told my parents about it. I’m 26.

On the positive side I was ordered to stay home from school for 14 days after the surgery and the doctor told me to eat lots of ice cream. So it was a win for me, I guess.

Image credits: Fhital

#7

Met my wife on one of those telephone chat dating things in the 90’s. Basically, before OKCupid, you would sign up for a voicemail and describe yourself. We connected and went out but were both embarrassed for using it. Fast forward 18 years, we continue to tell everyone we met in the music section at Borders.

Image credits: Drife1994

#8

My mom is white and blonde, my stepdad is italian and I’m black and look exactly like my father. Walking around with them in public attracted a look of confused looks, one time I caught a dude looking and told him I was adopted from Africa. Some of my friends heard it and they all believed me instantly. I managed to keep that lie for 2 weeks, in the process I had to keep learning and making comments about Africa during conversations to appear sincere.

Image credits: Wrsj

#9

So it was sophomore year of high school, I took 1 class of basic 3D modeling as an elective. Keep in mind BASIC my models were bad but what are going to expect from a 16 y/o. A little later I was playing on a Minecraft pixelmon server (Pokémon in Minecraft) where I made friends with the owner and became a moderator. The owner of the server was also on the development team of the mod and he asked in the discord if anyone has any 3D modeling experience, I said I did (not a lie), he asked me if I could fix a current model he had that was giving him issues so I said sure (again basic, me moving the model was a miracle) but I looked up a bunch of tutorials and forcibly taught my self how to model. Over the course of the next year and a half I kept teaching my self and learning and I’d say I got pretty good at 3D modeling, and for a brief stint (before I left the project) I became the head 3D artist of the whole project and made decent money)

Mage (sever owner and dev of the mod) if you are seeing this, sorry for the lie, and thanks for the opportunity’s

Image credits: Graphics159

#10

It’s a long story but if you ever see me around my grandparents please refer to me as *Doctor* TallEnoughJones

Image credits: TallEnoughJones

#11

I used to sit in my car for hours a day to act like I went out. I was too scared of my parents to tell them I dropped out of college. I eventually got a job and used that as a cover until I had enough to move out.

Image credits: Llafy

#12

In my early 20s, I worked as an in home caretaker of the elderly. When I was first hired with the company, I was sent to a lot of one-day jobs, like if the client’s regular caregiver was unavailable I would go fill in and then never see them again.

Being a young lady, they ALL would ask me if I was in college, which I wasn’t. I was a college dropout. And soon I got sick of the disapproving faces of these seniors whenever I would answer that I was not in school.

One day, I arrived to another client who was new to me. Sweet older couple. They asked me, as they all did, if I was in school. I was convinced I would never see these guys again, as was true for every client of mine up to this point, so I just answered yes I’m in nursing school.

I ended up being their regular caregiver for over two years. They often asked me how school was going. My best friend was actually in nursing school, so I always just parroted whatever she told me she was learning lol.

Image credits: breakfastfordinner11

#13

TL;DR: My grandma stubbornly lied about her age for over 70 years.

My grandmother was always incredibly vague about when she was born, how old she was when she came to the USA, how old she was when she was married, etc. Even her birthday was vague: In the old country (Eastern Europe) birthdays weren’t such a big deal, so her parents chose an approximate birthday for her visa. (NB: Her parents chose Jan 15, which later became MLK day. She was pretty racist, so we’d always mess with her on her birthday by wishing her a happy MLK day.)
Anyway, on one of her birthdays she said to my mom “You know, you don’t think of yourself as old, and then you get to be my age, and you have to admit it – you’re old!”
My mom thought this was a strange thing to say for someone she thought was turning 77.
“Mom, how old *are* you?”
“How old do you *think* I am?”
“Now I think you’re 80.”
My grandmother did not confirm or deny my mother’s guess.
Years later, when my grandfather died, we cleaned out his desk and found her old passport. Indeed, we found out that she came to this country in 1921 and lied about her age ever since.

In fact, she kept it up with everyone outside the family. She moved to an assisted living facility closer to my immediate family when she was in her mid-90s and never told anyone at the facility her age. Every month the kitchen would bring out a cake for people with a birthday that month – the oldest person with a birthday that month got to blow out the candles. They would ask “Who has a birthday this month?” A lot of hands would go up.
“Who has a birthday this month and is over 80?” A couple of hands would go down.
“Over 85?” A few more hands would go down.
“Over 90?” A bunch more hands lost.
Et cetera. My grandma? She never raised her hand.
We blew her cover with a 100th birthday party. Even her hairdresser had no idea.

She died at 103, outliving her cardiologist (who was 40+ years her junior) by six years.

She also lied about making gefilte fish. Then one day my mom found a jar of store-bought gefilte fish hidden in the laundry room behind boxes of detergent. When my mom brought up the jar and silently pointed to it, grandma exclaimed, “You never noticed!”

Image credits: eric02138

#14

When I was eight, I was a chatterbox and one day, I ended up getting detention because I wouldn’t stop talking or whatever so I get this “detention notice” slip that must be signed by a parent or guardian and returned the next day.

My little Machiavellian mind quickly made up a scheme. I went home and I told my parents that I wanted to make my own signature, so I asked to see how my parents did theirs. I practiced my mother’s signature until I was comfortable and then I forged the slip. My teacher didn’t catch the forgery, and I got away with it lol.

I’m still super proud of that little psycho 🤣

#15

I didn’t want to come to work one day, so I called and said someone stole my car so I couldn’t make it. Then for the next two weeks I had to take the bus and walk 3 miles from the bus stop to my job, and after those two weeks I had my drivers’ side window rolled down and taped clear plastic over the window to appear that someone had broken into it, so I could further show that the car had been stolen.

In retrospect it probably wasn’t worth all the trouble.

#16

I once burnt chocolate chip cookies I was making for a baby shower. In a last ditch effort, I picked up two dozen cookies from McDonald’s. My plan wasn’t to mention anything to anyone, but one of our close friends was asking about the recipe and I said it was a McDonald’s copycat recipe I found on Pinterest.

I quickly found a recipe I’d never tried before and shared it with her. My husband jumped on board and supported me, even though he knew the truth. He even promised to never tell a soul about the McDonald’s cookies. It’s been about three years now and nothing ever came of it, but it’s one lie that he and I joke about every so often.

#17

None of my family knows how I met my wife. They think I met her in California through a friend out there when I was in the military. We actually met on Tumblr.

We’ve been married almost 10 years.

Image credits: Is_my_work_account

#18

My husband told everyone he had cancer. Then a few years later said it returned. After he said it returned, I found out it wasn’t true either time. I have kept his secret from everyone. Everyone we know believes he is a cancer survivor. The stress of it is killing me. My throat burns 24/7 from stomach acid and I’m pretty sure I have an ulcer. I have isolated myself from everyone I know. Gave up social media except Reddit because it’s anonymous. The only people I see now are 2 family members and my therapist. On top of it, he left me and is off living his life.

#19

In school i accidentally left a notebook in a class. It was a new notebook and during that class I’d only written one page… a rather embarrassing page. Well i realized later I’d forgotten it and someone was going to find it and open it to see whose it was and be met with no name, just a page of writing so bizarre that they’re surely going to want to find who wrote it. So i started faking an entire new notebook of notes and assignments using a whole made up handwriting style. Eventually the principle called me into her office and asked me if that notebook was mine. I told her it was not and that doesnt look like my writing and i showed her my other notebook for comparison.

Image credits: ScalyPig

#20

I once sprayed the whole 3 acre yard, house, garage, porch, etc… down with a hose on a july afternoon so my dad would think it rained and i wouldnt get in trouble for not mowing the lawn.

Image credits: snakesRcool

#21

When I was a dumb teenager, I wouldn’t take my full dose of antibiotics when I would get a UTI (which I would get often at the time). So now there are two very common antibiotics that won’t work for me. I’ve tried explaining to doctors so many times, but they always insist it will be fine, the infection doesn’t go away, and I have to go back in. Another copay and another round of antibiotics to pay for. So now I’m allergic.

Image credits: Actrivia24

#22

I didn’t want to eat chili, so my first response was “I am cutting back on my meat intake.

Went vegan for 2 years.

#23

Well, there was this one time I pretended not to know what a potato was (as a joke), and my partner’s parents thought I was serious. So I made the poor decision to commit to the lie, which enraged them and resulted in a huge fight and I am now so committed the only way out for me is if they actually believe I don’t know what a potato is.

Image credits: imakenosensetopeople

#24

I was seeing a guy that my friends didn’t want me to be seeing. I went to his house and parked in his driveway but when we took his car to go get dinner he backed right into my car and smashed the headlight and left a nice dent. My friend who didn’t want me to see this guy works on cars so I gathered up all the broken bits of my headlight, towed my car to my work, scattered the broken bits to recreate the illusion that someone had backed into my car at work. I then called my friend and he came with his tow truck and got my car. To this day he has no idea what really happened to my car.

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Image credits: LadyBuxton