Ever been accused of something you did not do ?
 

I ran into a guy this morning. The last time we interacted, was not pleasant.
This was in the late 90's when my business was larger, with employees.
Guy came in for a transmission fluid change on his 90's 626. We were busy, and all of our lifts were full. I did the job myself, on the floor, which ended up being a pain because, you used to have to drop the frame bracing a little bit to get the pan out, and a few of his bolts snapped off, so I had to drill, tap,an d replace them.
Long story short , the job ate my lunch for $59.99 or whatever we charged at that time .
He picks up his car, pays, and returns the next morning accusing me of not doing the job. He is convinced that I wiped his pan clean, wrote him a bill, and sent him down the road.
I offer to lift his car, and show him my work, in which I did, I explained, that I did this one myself, so I know , 100 %, that it was done. I showed him the new bolts that I rad replaced, and showed him the clean gasket under the pan.
He demanded to see the old parts, but I had emptied the garbage in the morning, and did not have the filter handy. He said " oh , isn't that convienent " So , I walked down the street, dumpster dived, and returned with his old filter, and gasket.
He then wanted to know how he could be so sure that I did not pull, just any random oil filter out of the trash, and tell him it was his .
Im pretty sure I lost my cool, at this point, gave him the parts in a box, and showed him the door
I've had a few others in my life. Late teens, My boss was sure I was breaking in to the Mitsubishi dealer lot at night and stealing car stereos,and wheels and tires . A few months after I quit that ****ty job, I saw in the paper, that , the lot boy, ( boss's nephew ) got caught red handed with quite a bit of stuff he had pirated from the place after hours .
I remember it being infuriating sitting there defending myself.

Got any stories ?

Got my driver's license....finally. 16 years old? Took my Mom's '69 Cutlass S out for a spin....there's a place on US 1 where the RR tracks crossed and you had to get it up to speed a little to help the car go over the tracks a little more smoothly. Not super fast - maybe 5-10 over limit. Cop pulled me over and when asked why I was speeding I told him. He didn't believe me. Never forgot what a doosh that cop was and how much it sucked when someone basically called you a liar.

I have a funny one.
When I was a kid, around 12 or so, we'd all modify our BMX bikes. I had just painted some parts on mine, with red spray paint.
We were building jumps etc on some dirt lot when cops pulled up.
They pointed to some graffiti on the wall, and asked if we did it.
We did not, of course, and told them so.
Since we had nothing to do with it, I wasn't worried about it.
Until the cop asked why the red spray paint on my hands matched the color of the graffiti!
He did have a point there! Caught "red handed!"
They didn't question us too hard though. I think they were pretty sure some 10-12 year old kids didn't even know what the hard core Mexican gang graffiti even meant.
Plus, the paint on my hands did match the fresh paint on my bike.

It's the things I got away with that make life worth living.

Yeah.

I've used most of them as life lessons on how to avoid those situations in the future.

One of them was actually a discrimination accusation.

Female staffer had been talked into claiming the reason she had not been promoted further was because she was a woman. The guy who talked her into it was one of the Sr guys on my staff who wanted my job. I did not hire the guy, inherited him after an acquisition and his group got folded into one of the business units I ran.

HR calls me on the last Friday of my paternity leave telling me "don't go to your office Monday, come straight to HR, there's a problem but don't worry, we have the lawyers handling it already" :confused::confused::confused::eek::eek::eek:

Told them they needed to tell me what was going on, they can't call me on a Friday and leave me hanging all weekend.

So they told me and when I heard it I laughed at the ridiculousness of it as I'd fought tooth and nail with HR for years over this persons advancement. They said a similar thing, they knew it was bull**** because we'd argued so often over doing the right thing by her.

By Monday morning she'd apparently realized she'd been played and went to HR to recant and spilled the beans on who put her up to it.

Needless to say we were having a company wide "thinning of the herd' coming up and normally it was up to me who got cut in my groups.

HR called up and said "you get to sit this one out, we've got your list for you already"

They did that so no one could accuse me of getting revenge.

Vividly remember a couple of times when I was very young.

Once a neighbor girl had a cousin visiting my same age. That cousin accused me of choking her. She had even somehow made her neck red. I got punished and I never even touched her.

Another time a coworker of my Dad's came to visit but make their kids my age stay in their Van. I went out to visit. The youngest of them, a 3 year old came across the van and kicked me in the stomach. Their Dad ran out and spanked me with his belt for mistreating his child.

Taught me at a very young age to never trust authority.

Recently was accused of sexual harassment. Was discussing a medical procedure with the HR person than handles our health insurance claims. Part of the procedure was getting a skin graft. Told her I thought it was interesting I had to sign a form because skin grafts were made from foreskin. She claimed I said they filled the hole with dead baby penises. As far as I am concerned both her and the HR Director that wrote me up to be fired for sexual harassment should both be out on their arses.

Here's one that at least ended well...

My wife went out of town for a short week. Several days after she returned she went to do the laundry and she found some ladies underwear in the hamper. And they were most definitely not hers.

Now I've been married 30 years this coming February. I am by no mean perfect - I've got just as many (if not more) flaws than the next guy. HOWEVER, I have never cheated on my wife in any way. It might be the only thing I've ever been perfect about, but in the area of fidelity I have never slipped! And I know my wife both knows this, and doesn't particularly worry about it.

But...
But...

She called and asked me about them, and as she said "I do trust you, but how can I not make this call? What would any other woman do? What would you tell our daughters to do?" The problem was I had absolutely NO explanation as to where they had come from. None. Zero. Zip.

And then... I got pissed. Cuz I knew I had nothing to do with them. And I let her know I was pissed - which, as it turned out, was not the right thing to do.

I wondered if someone was playing a practical joke, but my brother and my jokester buddy had not been in my home in a month.

And let me repeat - I had been home alone as my wife had been gone nearly a week before she found them.

Then I wondered if someone was trying to get me in trouble. Mind you, I have no trouble finding trouble on my own, but still I went to that place in my head. I decided that was delusional.

Neither of our daughters had been home in months, so that couldn't be it.

It wasn't a joke and it wasn't someone trying to get me in trouble.

And then I thought of it!

My wife and I met our 25yo daughter in New Orleans for a family reunion a week before my wife left town. We rented an awesome 150 year old house in the Garden District. It was cool in every way but one - only one bath room. I love my daughter, but she can sometimes be a little messy and leave her clothes about. I figured I must have scooped up my clothes and some of hers after a shower one morning. And upon my return home I just my laundry bag in the hamper, none the wiser.

Wife called daughter; daughter confirmed ownership. Tragedy narrowly averted!

Phew.

If she'd have not admitted they were hers, I don't know where that would have gone....

yup.

by my mom. she accused me of pawning something.

i found it years later and showed it to her..she said she did not accuse me.

great parenting 101.. maybe why i dont have kids of my own.

I'm sure I've been accused unfairly, and I bet it evens out with things I probably got away with.

Life is funny that way.

The current gf accused me of fooling around with my ex. Coulda, shoulda, woulda, but didn't.

I was a small child. Maybe 6? I went with to the grocery store that had been owned by my Grandfather before he sold it and changed careers.

I had a quarter in my pocket and shopped and reviewed the various candy selections offered. In the end, I walked out without buying (I was a tight wad even back then!).

The new owner accused me of stealing and demanded that I empty my pockets. I was terrified and did so. She let me go but didn't apologize or make any attempt to repair things.

I cried all the way back to my Grandparents home and explained to my Grandmother what happened. She picked up the phone and reamed the store owner a good one.

Thanks Grandma! It is good to have someone on your side.

Yup. In my teens some girls banded together at our place of employment and accused me of sexual harassment. Management knew it wasn't true, and when they investigated further they found the girls didn't like the way I looked so they wanted me fired. Same thing happened again a number of years later (at a different employer) when I was in my early 20's. This time they admitted to not wanting to look at a "freaky looking" guy and figured it would be best if I didn't work there anymore.

At least I had the last laugh as they were the ones fired.

My wife accused me of farting in a movie theater once. This was after the shower incident. I said "b.s., nothing rolled down my pant leg and under the seat". Case closed.

Early this year. 1998 Chrysler Concord. Car had a fistful of wires fused under the passenger seat. Holes in floor pan.

I could not diagnose. Farmed it out to a local indy shop better at this sort of thing. Needed an ECU and another separate module on top of plus or minus thirty wires that needed mending.

Well they got a used ECU that held the odo mileage...... from the donor. 220k vs 90k original.

As I was assisting her shuttle from indy shop to rental car place that she rented a car from in the 10 days plus without the Chrysler, she called me from her cell phone, I can see her in my rear view mirror - I was driving the rental.

Screams, "I gave this car to you with 90k miles now it has 220k miles. Where the eff have you been driving my car?"

70 year old woman. Pretty feisty.

That was the termination of our commercial relationship.

Was working at a summer job at a summer camp in the mountains during college. The owner (a woman) and her henchwomen came up to me one morning and said I had turned the Olympic sized pool water blood red. I was totally surprised and told her to look elsewhere. Finally later in the day I found out one of the younger kids had poured a bunch of red food coloring into the pool. I took some bleach out and added it to the water & cleared out the red color from the food coloring and told her the water was clear. Never got an apology from her over that.

In school: Was in study hall, at the desk of the supervisor
The fire alarm went off
we all had to get out

on my way down the stairs, I, being a delinquent at the time pushed in every fire alarm that crossed my path. The alarm kept going for another hour or 2 since nobody knew where the key of the control box was.

The next day i was called in front of the super and the principal.. And they accused me of turning on the fire alarm.
WHICH WAS A TOTAL LIE.
The super was an idiot.. Litterally stood right in front of him the exact second it had started.

He then went on to say he saw me push in the alarm thingies.
"So i know it was you".



Obviously I stuck to my story the entire time. Cause technically, I did not start the fire alarm.
I just pushed in the little thingies.

Major difference.

Oh yeah, I got 2 weeks of detension for that one..
So what did they do? they locked me up in the room next to the principals office.
Which happened to be the room where the computer was stored where they kept a little DBASE IV Clipper DB with grades and other crap.

Now I wouldn't call myself a hacker of any sort at this moment, but back then any fool and his grannie could get in a Dbase IV DB via the indexes. They never figured it out.

Then another time I got to do punishment for getting out after class and running to the candy store.
But, this was 2nd trimester.. And I had been in boarding school first trimester. And I knew the boarding rules said you can't do that.

But in 2nd I was no longer on boarding (There had been some threats of starting a fire if they kept me there , was 13 and big divorce at home, they had put me there for convenience,bad times)

The key was they never had given me the rule book for the externs that come to school and go home each day.
So technically I had broken a rule they never told me about. In which case it was a crime I could not wilfully commit.

The entire 2nd trimester went down the drain over them doubling the punishment and me refusing to do it on grounds of their forgetfulnes to proactively inform me of the rules for externs.

It was all downhill from there on :D

I get accused of being egotistical.

I was accused of beating up a kid on the school bus. The kid, his parents, the principle, were all surprised when my parents walked into the meeting with me in tow. The kid said, "No, not him. I've never seen him on my bus "