Excuse me, I have an alibi
By Sheryl-Lee Kerr
THERE are times in our lives when we all wish we had an alibi: at
Christmas drinks with one’s great aunt who wants to know if that was you she saw at the fast-food drive-through, after you’ve told everyone you were dieting and, thus, sadly unable to eat her triple rum cake.
Or, when calling in sick at work by citing the fact your lung has
landed on the lounge-room floor and you now need a goodly day or two to
squeeze it back in.
Well, help is at hand. I read there is a new company in England called the Alibi Agency (AA) which has come up with a novel way of helping people
avoid getting caught for naughty stuff. Perhaps not too surprisingly, its
specialty is hiding sexual dalliances.
Customers can choose between “a bogus invitation to a golf
tournament in Scotland, bills for business lunches that never took place or
fictional telephone reservations’’, a wire story casually informs. Annual
membership costs $49; the fake “confirmation’’ of an appointment by
telephone can be had for $36.
Leaving aside the highly dubious ethics of this venture which, as
our office’s Uncle Trev would say is surely proof the world is going to heck
in a handbasket, business is booming. Ronnie Brock, who runs the agency, has had 1600 customers in eight months - 40 per cent were women.
Now while I am sure Mr Brock is doing a brisk trade, I am thinking
he could probably diversify without too much trouble.
So, on those sick days, instead of trying to sell the
lung-on-the-lounge-room-floor story to the boss, you could choose between endorsed pains and plagues, certified by AA, of course.
You could wheeze: “Sorry boss, love to be there for the paperclip audit but the leprosy, you know ...’’
For the pub-goer not wanting to return home to a storm for reeking
of three kinds of malted brew, no problem for the AA. All they’d need is to
have the paperwork outlining one’s admission into work’s new market-research beverage-testing facility: THIS MONTH - beer analysis.
Then there’s credit-card overspending. I am certain AA could find a
way to justify that $900 make-up kit and Bolle sunglasses. A letter from
your company’s personnel department thanking workers for making the switch to the new informal uniform might do the trick.
I’d end this column on a witty closing remark except, alas, the
Black Plague is kicking in again. (Feeble cough.)
Hey, I have the certificate to prove it.
© Sheryl-Lee Kerr & The Advertiser, 1 DEC 1999