History Main / InventedInvalid

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': When Castle's ditzy first ex-wife Meredith comes back into town, she at one point tells their daughter Alexis' high school that her grandmother has died so can she please be excused from classes. She neglects to mention that said grandmother died several years ago; she really just wanted to take Alexis shopping.

* In BritCom ''Series/TheBrittasEmpire'', Helen Brittas, the semi-sane and barely functioning wife of the idiot Gordon, uses this excuse to get away from the husband who is driving her mad. she claims she is going to nurse an invalid elderly uncle for two days, but as she is seen in stockings and suspenders and dressing to kill, the audience is primed to doubt this... she does pack a "nurse's outfit", though.

* In ''Literature/BelisariusSeries'' the hunted runaway princess Shakuntala escaped the evil empire's city by dressing in the finery of-well-a princess-but a generic one rather then the one that they were looking for (to make sure anyone would be too intimidated by her awesome authority to question), and traveling in an ostentatiously princessly caravan to what she claimed was a dying father. Presumably that was felt needed to explain why a woman would be traveling in early medieval India.

* In an episode of ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'', Jessie pulls this trick. When Meowth finds out, he is not amused.

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* In later Literature/{{Discworld}} watch books, the City Watch gives an allowance of days off for three grandmother's funerals per year. This was instituted after Nobby started taking up to eight.
* In Creator/MercedesLackey's Elizabethan novels, Rhoslyn excuses her regular absences from attending on Mary Tudor by saying her brother has a chronic illness. (The brother is real, the illness isn't.)

* One ''Literature/MissMarple'' story has a complicated version where a pair of sisters rents an apartment, one being the kind of invalid who takes advantage of her condition to boss people around. Fortunately the long-suffering sister hires a maid who specializes in dealing with these cases. Then one day the apartment is burgled and the sisters vanish. It turns out the maid was the "invalid" in disguise, who robbed the apartments while everyone assumed she was aleep.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': When Castle's ditzy first ex-wife Meredith comes back into town, she at one point tells their daughter Alexis' high school that her grandmother has died so can she please be excused from classes. She neglects to mention that said grandmother died several years ago; she really just wanted to take Alexis shopping.
* In BritCom ''Series/TheBrittasEmpire'', Helen Brittas, the semi-sane and barely functioning wife of the idiot Gordon, uses this excuse to get away from the husband who is driving her mad. she claims she is going to nurse an invalid elderly uncle for two days, but as she is seen in stockings and suspenders and dressing to kill, the audience is primed to doubt this... she does pack a "nurse's outfit", though.

* On ''Series/LawAndOrder'', Ed Green and Cyrus Lupo are in the middle of an investigation that Green discovers to be tied to an old flame. He tries to get out to warn her by leaving work early, claiming that he needs to visit a sick friend. And thus starts a chain of events that end up costing him his career...
* Discussed in ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' ("The Two Mrs Cranes"). Gil is looking to get out of a dinner party, and asks Frasier to back him up on an excuse. Frasier explains he's driving his father to his army reunion. Gil assumes it's this trope, and laments that he can't use the same excuse - he already "killed off" his father to escape a "Labour Day Clam Bake".

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A subtrope of InventedIndividual. Compare INeedToGoIronMyDog for varying levels of believability.

* In ''Literature/BelisariusSeries'' the hunted runaway princess Shakuntala escaped the evil empire's city by dressing in the finery of-well-a princess-but a generic one rather then the one that they were looking for(to make sure anyone would be to intimidated by her awesome authority to question), and traveling in an ostentatiously princessly caravan to what she claimed was a dying father. Presumably that was felt needed to explain why a woman would be traveling in early medieval India.

* On ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'', Leonard makes up a story about going to a symphosium to keep from going to Penny's recital. Sheldon feels that story is insufficient and makes up a more elaborate one that involves going out of state to visit a cousin in rehab, even going as far as hiring an actor to play said cousin.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy, Meg knocks on the door of the boy she was going to go to the prom with. He answers, then goes back into the house for a minute. We hear a gunshot, and he comes back out crying that he can't go because he must attend his brother's funeral. He didn't "make up" his brother's condition, but presumably created it by shooting him--so this could be the trope taken up to a pretty twisted eleven.

* In ''Film/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'', Lupin mentions that he would often claim his mother was ill as an excuse for his frequent absences, since he didn't want anyone finding out he was a werewolf and needed to be away from the school during his transformations.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode ''Homer's Phobia'', Smithers spots CampGay antiques dealer John with the title family at a restaurant and confronts him with, "So, this is your 'sick mother?'"

* On {{MASH}} Klinger tries many times to get out of the army, including presenting the Colonel with a letter from home saying his mother is dying. The Colonel pulls out Klinger's file filled with letters from home saying his mother is dying, father is dying, sister is dying, sister is pregnant, sister is dying and mother pregnant, etc.