• Bid for sympathy
• Excuse designed to elicit sniffles
• Excuse of a sort
• Excuse that's often exaggerated
• Insincere excuse
• It may elicit sympathy
• Lame excuse, perhaps
• Long, drawn-out excuse
• Many a lame excuse
• Sympathy seeker's tale
• Sympathy-arousing excuse
• Tale about a real so-and-so?
• Tale lost on the heartless
• Tale of personal woe
• Tale of woe
• Tearful tale
• Tearjerker
• Whiner's tale
she came very late and gave them a sob-story about a broken clock - она сильно опоздала и рассказала им сказку о сломанных часах
1. слезливая, душещипательная история
2. (притворные) жалобы, сетования; отговорка
she came very late and gave them a ~ about a broken clock - она сильно опоздала и рассказала им сказку о сломанных часах