I Need To Go Iron My Dog / Webcomics

• 8-Bit Theater has an early comic example where Black Mage, having just missed an opportunity to stab Fighter, covers it up with...
  Black Mage: I just remembered that um... I left my magic on... In my house... Where I live.
• anti-HEROES has a not-even-trying version with "I have to... go over here, now."
• From Blip: We... need to go... wash our... cat.
• One Concerned strip has Gordon trying to ask out one of his female co-workers at the Combine Citadel out on a date, and she gives him the "I have to wash my hair" excuse. The catch here is that the coworker, who was a normal human in the previous comic, is now a transhuman Combine soldier instead.
• An extremely unsubtle example in a strip of Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures. Not only does Wildy stare at her wrist while not wearing a watch, she claims to be in a hurry because "It's leaving o'clock!"
• In an episode of Darths & Droids, Anakin doesn't want to go with Mace Windu to arrest Chancellor Palpatine, so he quotes another trope as his excuse. Windu buys it.
  Anakin: Sorry, I...need to wash my hair.
  Mace Windu: Hmm, okay. I guess hair-people have special needs.
• El Goonish Shive:
  • A flustered Tedd needs "to go check on...the thing...that's upstairs."
  • Susan of all people. "I'm sorry, I have a thing on Friday at a place where I'll be preoccupied with some stuff that will unfortunately make it impossible for me to, uh...Bye!"
• Forest Hill: In one comic, Kaleb asks his mother if he has to be gay when he grows up because he thinks that girls are gross. She makes the excuse that she needs to go get more coffee, but leaves her cup behind, so she can step out of the room to laugh.
• The Girl and Speedy from A Girl and Her Fed can both tell that something's up while the group is out at a restaurant, so she makes an excuse to go check things out.
  Girl: We're gonna...go to the restroom and check on our drinks.
  Mako: Great! Get me a for god's sake, separate your sentences. With a twist of lime.
• Girl Genius: Professor Diaz and Doctor Mittelmind, two of the mad scientists imprisoned in Castle Heterodyne, when faced with the prospect of using the elevator they just constructed in a hurry, start spouting the most outrageous excuses. Parodied when Professor Mezzasalma, the third of the group, then says "you two disgust me", but then instead of calling them out on their obvious nonsense, tells Agatha that "they took all the good excuses, and crying is undignified.".
• Gunnerkrigg Court: Annie is not the most socially adroit, even when she's giving her friends some alone time. Said friends immediately Lampshade it.
  Antimony: Well then! If you will excuse me. I have to...find...a...book. [Beat Panel] [Marches away]
  Alistair: She's not very subtle, is she?
• I'm the Grim Reaper: While Chase is still recovering from being stabbed, at one point he starts talking about a soup he had as a kid and how much he would like it again. Scarlet immediately starts putting her shoes on and when asked what she’s doing she says she has to go check what color the sky is.
• In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!, this is Molly's excuse for standing Rocko up for a date bearing in mind that Molly is completely covered with pink hair. "I had to wash my hair. All of it."
• In the furry comic ISO by Vince Suzukawa, when the main character Cody Frost is trying to work up the nerve to ask his crush, Gentle Giant Doug, out on a date, his Imagine Spot comes up with various reasons why Doug might turn him down. This excuse is one of them.
• Keychain of Creation: "My, look at the time! I need to go find my Keys." Oddly, he really does...
• Lackadaisy:
  • I think I left my hat in the car. I should go...be with my hat...in the car.
  • Mordechai brushes off a girl trying to ask him to dance (and another girl berating him for brushing the first one off) by suddenly taking up botany, studying a ficus tree. Inverted in that he's trying to get them to leave.
    Mordechai: It's an excellent ficus. [looks back, girls are still there] I wish I were this ficus.
• Litterbox Comics: Fran tries to weasel out of a friend's one-woman show by claiming, "Gotta stay home, otherwise I'll catch on fire." She clarifies that she's gotten bad at lying due to all the outlandish lies she tells her kids.
• The ladyfolk of Loserz would rather, amongst other things, paint the Sistine Chapel, lick their own asshole or eat babies than date Erik or Ben. Disco Jesus, however... doesn't date boys.
• In Orbit, Hyra's frantically tries to come up with an excuse when Nix tries to get him and Charon to hang around Pluto more. Charon fails to catch on quick enough to back him up.
  Hyrda: We have that thing to go to, right Charon?
  Charon: What? No. We're completely free, dude.
• The Order of the Stick:
  • A pair of lantern archons resorts to this kind of excuse when the Monster in the Darkness begs them to hit him with their beams of light, and they interpret it as some kind of fetish.
    Lantern Archon #1: Um, yeah, so, we have to go take care of this...thing.
    Lantern Archon #2: Yeah, uh, this thing we were supposed to take care of. Over there. Away from here.
  • Elan and Haley go back to their room to give their pet orangutan a bath. This is interpreted as innuendo for bonus points.
  • And then, having realized how this pretense is getting interpreted and that it's still considered an acceptable excuse:
    Elan: Uh, Dad? Haley and I need to go...uh...have sex.
    Tarquin: Well, you'll miss the big fight, but you do what you need to do.
    Haley: Come on, V. And bring the cat, just in case.
    Tarquin: ... Huh.
• Poor David of Ow, my sanity gets his share of lame excuses. Including the "I have to wash my hair" one, from a shaved girl.
• Ozy and Millie:
  • In an early strip, Millie is practicing dealing with the press as a politician. She panics at the first question; one of her excuses is "I had to wash my styrofoam!"
  • Later, it is implied that she tried to create a diversion with "Aaaah, Mom, the duck is on fire!"
• I left my... house... running. from Out at Home.
• Persona 3 FTW has Mitsuru give the MC a list of classic excuses for getting out of a date to the movies, before giving up and just admitting that she doesn't want to go.
• Persona 4TW has Yosuke, Chie, and Yukiko excuse themselves from the awkward moment after Nanako says she doesn't have a mom by saying "I'm gonna go get a soda," "I have to pee," and "I also have to go do something."
• Questionable Content:
  • "I gotta... go. Do a thing. Away. From here."
  • "I just remembered, I have a chicken in the coffee roaster! Gotta go make sure it's not overdone!"
  • "I just remembered I have to give my boyfriend his butt medicine every two hours or his butt will explode..."
  • Subverted in this strip, where Faye has a legitimate reason for having to wash her hair: bubblegum.
  • A lampshaded example on this page, courtesy of Brun leaving Shitty Dan and Renee together.
    Brun: This feels like one of those moments where I'm supposed to make an excuse to leave you two alone, but I'm bad at thinking up excuses.
    Dan: You could always go with "powdering your nose." Thats a classic.
    Brun: I'm going to go do cocaine in the bathroom.
• Schlock Mercenary had Elf motivating a recruit clumsily trying to hit on her to remember he needs to walk away into undefined direction right now. In the same chapter they got a repair bot suddenly remembering odds and ends that needs to be polished at the sight of Para Ventura. For bonus points, it brought this on itself.
• In The Suburban Jungle Leonard says "I think I left an inventory report burning in the oven" in order to give Mikey and Wally some time to talk things out alone.
• Superbitch: When a supervillain Superbitch is fighting calls her minions to back her up, they take one look at what's happening and decide they need to be anywhere else.
• VG Cats: In the strip "A Work of Fiction", Aeris and Leo are in a bookstore of sorts, where Leo notices a Left 4 Dead book. He opens a page at random, finding out it's a yaoi fanfic, the explicit sexual contents weirding him out. "Oh hey, is that the cooking section? Yeah I'm going over there... far, FAR over there."
• Wapsi Square: A whole string of these before she announces she just does have to go.
• In a comic of The Wotch, the heroes are at the mall, and Jason is present as Sonja. Katie and Wolfie walk by Sonja and do a Double Take upon realizing who she really is, and Katie gets into an argument with him/her over how abnormal this is. A minute later, Robin approaches with drinks, and Katie turns to him and demands, "Robin! You don't turn into a girl frequently for kicks, do you?" Robin immediately finds pressing business elsewhere: "Oh, gosh, I, uh, forgot straws! I'll just be off to get them..." The drinks already had straws in them.

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