So this afternoon, I was somewhat — nay, overwhelmingly — flabbergasted to read that Mike Arrington wasn’t able to keynote his talk at BlogExpo along with Om Malik, as they were meant to both talk with Leo Laporte on the Cult of Blogging. Om Malik was out with a bad back, and had to cancel a number of appointments recently.

Fine.

But the excuse given by Mr. Arrington?

He forgot.

I mean, I haven’t heard his side of the story yet, but let’s forget for a moment issues like how some people paid good money to fly to Las Vegas, to stay in Vegas, and to actually attend the conference, perhaps to meet someone *like* Mike. Or issues around accountability and respectability.

I mean, the excuse is just *lame*.

I think we’ve all been in the position where someone we’ve depended on couldn’t come in to work. I know I have. My position, however, is that I don’t really care what the excuse is.

Just … please. Make it either believable or entertaining.

For believable ones you could always try being sick. You could even try something specific like “gastroenteritis”, or “acute lower back pain”, or “migraines”, or “the flu” — all things that could lay you out for 24h-48h legitimately. Or, you could cast the “Personal reasons” card. Great blanket statement that could cover all kinds of personal issues, from family things to spouse-related ‘issues’. I find that transportation-related failures are also somewhat plausible. You car breaking down. Flights getting delayed. Bus blowing up. Something plausible like that.

But if you can’t think of anything believable, please — at least make something up that’s somewhat-entertaining.

Don’t say “I forgot”.

Say “Aliens abducted me and after probing me in all kinds of areas they removed my hippocampus. Then, I totally forgot about coming after that. In fact, I can’t remember anything now.”

Or, “I was brutally assaulted by some people I didn’t want to review on TechCrunch, and which resulted in some massive head injuries. I couldn’t remember much after that, and am calling you from the local emergency room.”

I mean, fine. You couldn’t go / didn’t want to go / had better things to do. I get it.

But could we just hear a better excuse next time?