Got your invitation. I really wish I could Zoom with you, but (choose one):

A. I've already scheduled a high-level Zoom meeting with Oprah.

B. I've been abducted by Martians, and Martians, as everyone knows, prefer FaceTime.

C. I don't have a computer.

Did any of these lies satisfy you? If not, I've got plenty more. Once you've given up your childish belief in telling the truth, there's no limit to what you can get away with when it comes to getting away from a Zoom.

And that's important. For all the improvements going virtual has made in our work lives, a few elements of the bad old days still remain firmly in place. For example, whether in the conference room or in the ether, meetings still go on too long. Way too long. Personal conversations between you and your annoying co-workers can also go on too long, especially if you're the one who has to pretend to be listening.

Unfortunately, the tried and true excuses you could count on to extract you from a torturous meeting or a break-room confession are suddenly and sadly ineffectual. Case in point: You can't use the classic move of jumping up in a meeting, clutching your stomach and announcing you are sick and have to rush home. You already are home! (I suppose you could claim to be sick and have to rush into the office, but I'm not sure where that would get you.)

Other great "I have to rush home" excuses you can no longer use include, "I have to feed my dog" and "I have to turn off the stove." But let's be honest; those old chestnuts had lost their potency long before the coronavirus came along. Everyone knows you don't have a stove.

Joe Pinsker feels your pain. As the author of "The New White Lies of Lockdown," a recent and instructional post from The Atlantic, Pinsker doesn't castigate the new, new-age liars. He celebrates them.

"Between work, child care, and household chores, many of those currently cooped up at home have ample excuses for not socializing," he affirms. "Like poets working within a particularly constrictive rhyme scheme, they are innovating deceptions within the present limitations."

Feel like you need to up your game when it comes to the poetry of lying? If you can't consult with a nearby politician, here's a few good ideas for being bad.

Let's start with psychology professor Robert Feldman, who points out "the excuses people provide in order to skip or curtail social encounters frequently blame an outside force. 'It's a social nicety that ensures that we're not really culpable.'"

One extremely poetic innovator of untruth is Heather Jovanovic, a 25-year-old college student. Jovanovic gets out of unwanted Zooms by claiming "the battery's running low on whatever device she's using." Why the failure of her electric toothbrush is reason to brush off a meeting, I don't know, but if it works, I say go for it.

Another student, Destiny Lopez, took the digital fade to an even higher level. "I turned off my audio slowly, and then I turned off my camera slowly, and then I just left the meeting" she reported, describing her triumphant exit from a virtual meeting, "I just cut off a small piece of myself, little by little, and then I'm out."

Or you could adopt the technique used by two of author Pinsker's friends. "When they were ready for the call to be over, they'd freeze their face and body in place for a moment, to make it seem as if their Wi-Fi had gone out, and then very carefully, off-camera, hit the End Call button."

They followed with a short message, "Whoops, I think my internet cut out."

If you question your skills as a mime, here's a low-tech solution. Simply start flashing the lights in your Zoom room while emitting a high-pitched keening. "Oh no!" you shout. "We're being Zoom-bombed! Log off, everybody, before your data is compromised."

If none of these lies will work for you, there may be no choice but to use the most desperate excuse of them all: You tell the truth.

"This meeting is really boring," you could say. Or, "I'd like to keep going, but it's time for 'Judge Judy.'"

Truthful or not, these are bad reasons to leave a meeting, and your manager won't be pleased, but they're better than saying, "Got to log off. I've got work to do."

That's an excuse no one is going to believe.

Bob Goldman was an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company. He offers a virtual shoulder to cry on at bob@bgplanning.com. To find out more about Bob Goldman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Tumisu at Pixabay