Last week, E decided that the family board game, Penn State-opoly, absolutely had to go with her to Nana's house for the day.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, it's Monopoly, only with Penn State landmarks. And several playing pieces. And a set of dice. And several sets of direction cards. And a whole lot of paper money.So, when she dropped the box on the steps and it came flying open, you can only imagine the windfall that quickly spread all over the entire hallway below.Just another reason for me to be late for work.Over the years, I, and every other parent who is involved in trying to get a child out of the door in the morning, have amassed quite a list of excuses. It's the adult version of "the dog ate my homework."I'm sure that I've lost about a week's worth of work to "my sock feels funny."This one always strikes right as we're about ready to walk out the door. I love summer because I can always go with "forget the socks and wear flip-flops." Which they usually do, as long as the little plastic piece is fitting comfortably between their toes.It doesn't help that we have to head down a flight of stairs in order to get out of our house.In addition to dumping board games down them, my kids like to do things like stand at the top and vomit down to the bottom. Stairs are excellent at taking a small problem and making it huge. This was another lesson learned the hard way.I knew I had a sick kid, so sick, that walking down the steps was just too much for them. Being a notorious klutz, I hate having to navigate stairs with my kids, so I deposited the kid on the top step, and ran down the rest of the steps to open the doors and make sure the path was clear, then came back to get the kid right as the vomit hit the top step and started spilling down the rest of the staircase.In retrospect, I think I dodged a bullet on this one, because if I had been holding the kid at the time, I would have had to clean myself up in addition to half of the house, and I would have been even later.The other week, G decided to be helpful and take out the garbage. The garbage bag from upstairs contains the contents of the litter box, and I usually take steps to double bag just in case.As is typical, the one time G volunteers to help is the one time I didn't double bag.The thoughtful child did notice the hole that "magically" appeared in the bag about halfway down the steps. So he carried the bag back up the steps to tell me about it. Ugh. No one was going anywhere fast that morning.The forgotten lunchbox, musical instrument or homework folder is also a notorious reason for being late.Now, I do agree with the conventional wisdom that says that kids need to learn responsibility, and when they forget something, they need to live with the consequences.When homework is forgotten, recess privileges are lost, and hopefully lessons are learned.However, when an instrument is forgotten, it will mean going an entire week without a lesson, or that someone can't play their part at band rehearsal.While there will be consequences of a different sort, I don't like holding up an entire organization because of my child's forgetfulness.There was also the time that E came home excited for "picnic lunch" the next day, and informed me that she needed to take a beach towel to school. She even took it upon herself to pack her bag the night before and be ready.Unfortunately, the next morning, before she was even awake, I remembered that I had forgotten to sign her homework paper the night before, and I went rummaging through her book bag to sign the sheet. While I was doing that, I removed the towel, and forgot to replace it.When she got to the bus stop, she was excited to show her towel to her friend, and at that point, was very confused as to why it wasn't there. I sprinted back to the house, but away she went to school, without the towel. I confess, I was late for work that day because I felt like I had to take her towel to school, and because I wanted her to see me taking responsibility for my own mistake.Anyone who has ever tried to pack up kids and get out of the house on time every morning knows what an ordeal it can be, and as we are all rushing into work, conversations quickly turn to whose kid pulled a zanier stunt. As long as dogs are family pets, homework will be eaten, and as long as there are kids, parents will be late for work.Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.