With a new sur­vey find­ing 27 per­cent of Amer­i­cans show­ing up late for work once a month, it stands to rea­son they need to have an ade­quate sup­ply of excuses at the ready.

These are the 10 Most Outrageous:

• My cat had the hiccups.
• I thought I won the lot­tery (but, alas, didn’t).
• I got dis­tracted watch­ing the Today show.
• My room­mate got mad at me and cut the cord to my phone charger, so it didn’t charge and my alarm didn’t go off.
• You mean my com­mute time doesn’t count toward my work hours?
• A fox stole my car keys.
• My leg got trapped between the sub­way car and the plat­form (This one turned out to be true).
• I have no inten­tion of get­ting to work before 9 a.m. (Start time was 8 a.m.)
• Sorry, I’m late. I had a job inter­view with another firm.
• I had to take a per­sonal call from the state gov­er­nor (This one also turned out to be true).