A news service recently posted an article listing the top ten reasons for missing a flight. Most were the usual lame excuses, including heavy traffic and security delays. All silly and unnecessary. Travel55+ has 5+5 of the real reasons that even a hard-nosed airline gate attendant has to  believe as perfectly valid. The excuses will bring tears to his eyes, and he will hold your flight, or even make the pilot come back, just for you. Here they are:

1. My dog ate my boarding pass.

2. That good-looking airport security guard frisked me and I got too emotionally involved.

3. My taxi driver didn’t speak English and he delivered me to the wrong airport.

4. Somali pirates hijcked me on the way to the airport.

5. I forgot to make my payment, and that big hairy guy and his bigger hairier wife repo’d my car.

6. I ate pork chops last night and woke up with symptoms of the swine flu. I was afraid I’d infect the other passengers.

7. I heard the pilot wanted to fly down too low over Los Angeles to get a photo of Paris Hilton dressed as the Statue of Liberty.

8. I watched Susan Boyle singing on TV and was hypnotized by her eyebrows.

9. I stopped to buy a pencil and put some coins in the cup of my former Wall Street broker.

10. I left an unattended bag at the check-in counter, and six guys waterboarded me.