History Main / CutHimselfShaving

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* Gordon from ''ComicStrip/ForBetterOrForWorse'' showed up at school one day with a bandage on his cheek. He claims he fell while helping take down the Christmas lights. Michael is very suspicious because his family went to their house for Christmas and they hadn't put up any lights.

[[folder:Religion]]
* An unfortunate rendering of [[Literature/BookOfZechariah Zechariah 13:6]] from Literature/TheBible in The Message translation makes the verse come off as this. (Contextually, it's talking about someone being chastised for proclaiming to be a prophet when he really isn't.)
-->''And if someone says, ‘And so where did you get that black eye?’ they’ll say, ‘I ran into a door at a friend’s house.’''
[[/folder]]

* In the ''WebVideo/KateModern'' episode "Honeymoon Blues," Julia claims that the large bruise on her face was caused by a falling coconut. In reality, [[spoiler: her husband [[DomesticAbuse hit her]]. ''With'' a coconut]].

-->'''Clef''': You'll never un-think it, Konny! It'll always be back there in the back of your head, nagging, nagging, tickling you, spinning around in an unending spiral…\\
'''Kondraki''': [Inarticulate scream of rage.]\\

-->11:16 '''Ukelele''': I need suggestions for a Decom. 809 is turning into a serious security risk and needs to die.\\
11:16 '''[=AgathaR=]''': LIVING VIVISECTION\\
11:16 '''Chris''': It could 'fall down some stairs'\\
11:16 '''Ook''': Them little bugs what take apart machines?\\
11:16 '''Chris''':..repeatedly..

* ''WebVideo/DragonballZAbridged'': When Goku asks Vegeta how he got injured on Namek, Vegeta is too proud to admit that he's been losing the fight against Freeza. He blanks on a plausible excuse, so Ghost Nappa suggests "You fell down some stairs." When Krillin tries to correct him, Vegeta threatens to "throw [him] down a flight."

* More than one act of violence against Dr. Clef of the ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' has been written off in a manner similar to this. For instance, claiming that he slammed his head into the table nine times during an interview, or that there was an experimental attempt to terminate SCP-682 using him.

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* In ''Webcomic/BiggerThanCheeses'' one character gets beaten by his wife and tries to tell his friend:
-->I fell down some stairs. Stairs filled with doorknobs. Doorknobs shaped like fists?
* Subverted in ''Webcomic/QuestionableContent'', where [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Hannelore]] really does just [[http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1207 bump her head]]. The officer has good reason to be concerned, though.
-->'''Hannelore''': No, no! I'm fine, really! I don't need to go to the police station!\\
'''Dora''': C'mon, officer, you're just freakin' her out more. She really did hit her head.\\
'''Officer''': Ma'am, this young lady just ran down Main Street covered in blood and screaming. That's normally the kind of thing that ''arouses suspicion''.
* In ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'', the Doc and Gordito [[http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/8p11/ use this excuse]] after Gordito learns of Dr. [=McNinja=]'s trained waking reflexes.
* ''Webcomic/LeastICouldDo'':
** {{Defied|Trope}}…
--->'''Rayne''': I fell down some stairs.\\
'''Noel''': No he didn't. I beat the shit out of him with a smile on my face.
** And played straighter earlier when Rayne has slept with a blonde that was into [[RomanticizedAbuse rough sex]], and goes to his mother for comfort.
--->'''Rayne:''' I fell down the stairs. [[SubvertedTrope Some angry and physically abusive stairs]]. [[CrossesTheLineTwice During sex.]]
* Inverted beautifully in [[http://ansemretort.org/ansemretort/index.html?comic=420 this]] ''Webcomic/AnsemRetort'' strip.
* Parodied in [[http://www.lfgcomic.com/page/48 this strip]] of ''Webcomic/LookingForGroup''. Richard lights a pirate on fire. When the captain asks him what happened, he (and the pirate) swear that the third-degree burns came from a fall down the stairs (pictured above).
* Used in ''Webcomic/SamAndFuzzy''. Noosehead's manager claims he [[http://samandfuzzy.com/682 cut himself shaving.]] [[KatanasAreJustBetter With a katana.]]
* In ''Webcomic/BobAndGeorge'', this is used after a plot device revives dead characters in the Rockman Universe. Bob tells Rock and Dr. Light that they fell down. Rock then questions if Roll fell ''up'', as she's tied to the ceiling. Bob responses that he put her up there to prevent her from falling down.
* In ''Webcomic/DarthsAndDroids'', the alien Tion Medon's ghastly facial features are [[http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0524.html explained away as a "shaving accident"]].
* At one point in ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater'', Black Mage gets fed up with Fighter and stabs Fight an inordinate amount of times. When another character asks Black Mage what happened to Fighter, Black Mages says that fighter tripped and accidentally fell on his knife. The incredulous questioner asks Black Mage how Fighter managed to do that 'forty-seven times.'
* ''Webcomic/BugMartini'' [[http://www.bugmartini.com/comic/punch-drunk-love/ once postulated]] that people whose spouses really do get black eyes from running into doors might have to claim those spouses were evil enough to be worth abusing.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* Music/SuzanneVega's "Luka", a song very obviously about child abuse, runs with the "walked into the door again" approach in amidst claims of being clumsy and recommendations not to ask. It's complete with LyricalDissonance, since the song is very upbeat and happy-sounding until you hear the lyrics.
* There's a [[TearJerker positively heartbreaking]] song by Music/JarsOfClay about child abuse simply titled ''He'', the chorus of which ends with the line "...And they think I fell down again." [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QZ4Daq4XVM Listen for yourself]].
* Some Music/CrashTestDummies fans suspect the song "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" is really about child abuse. In this interpretation, the girl with "birthmarks all over her body" is actually badly bruised, and claims the injuries are birthmarks in order to shield her abuser.
* Never Again by Music/{{Nickelback}}: "Just tell the nurse, you slipped and fell."
* "The Sanctuary Hum" by Project 86: "My sweet one/You tell no lies/The greatest reason to be despised/But we must pretend/Your broken wrist/Just happened when you fell off your bike".
* "Once and Never Again" by The Long Blondes. One of the verses indicates that the girl to whom the song is being sung is cutting herself- 'look what he's made you do to your arm again'; which makes the line in the chorus 'you said you cut yourself whilst washing up the knives' an example of this trope.
* "Hell Is For Children" by Music/PatBenatar, a song about AbusiveParents, has the line "Tell grandma you fell off the swing".
* The 18th-century English MurderBallad "The Berkshire Tragedy" has the VillainProtagonist resort to the nosebleed explanation (a detail preserved in later adaptations such as "The Knoxville Girl") when questioned upon returning home immediately after the crime:
-->How came you by that Blood upon\\
Your trembling Hands and Cloaths?\\
I presently to him reply'd,\\
By bleeding at the Nose.
* [[Music/{{Disturbed}} Disturbed]] has a song, Façade, about domestic abuse that has the lines, "''Did she fall again? An accident? Her eyes encircled in black again''"
* The Music/{{Ludacris}} song "Runaway Love" features a ten-year-old girl named Nicole. When her alcoholic step-dad beats her up, she often ends up bruised. Her teachers notice but Nicole always makes up excuses.
* Alec Benjamin's "Must Have Been The Wind" is about a man who befriends an abused woman. She makes excuses for signs of DomesticAbuse, such as the noise being just the wind.
* "All Over Now" by Music/TheCranberries opens with an apparent case of DomesticAbuse and the usual excuse.
-->''Do you remember, remember the time''\\
''at a hotel in London? They started to fight.''\\
''She told the man that she fell on the ground.''\\
''She was afraid that the truth would be found.''
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* ''Fanfic/AngerManagement'': Lynn tries to pretend that she got her injuries falling downstairs and accidentally punched ''herself'' in the eye, when actually Lincoln beat her up.
* In [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8078750/1/A_Call_to_Arms A Call to Arms]], the Carrows' abuse results in many of the students, including Ginny, receiving injuries during detention. Wishing to conceal the reason for her hurt knee, Ginny tells her friends that she fell down.
* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' Alternate Timeline fic [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7568728/1/ Saruman of many Devices]] features the disgraced lord of Dorwinion intentionally "cutting himself shaving" so as to avoid an inevitable death sentence, allowing his son to inherit. This is enabled by Prince Brand, who he betrayed by cowardice.
* In the ''Manga/DeathNote'' [[AlternateUniverseFic AU]] ''Fanfic/ThoseWhoStandForNothingFallForAnything'' after L beats up Light, Light tells everyone that he fell.
* In ''[[Fanfic/TheGreatSlaveKing The Marriage of the Slave King]]'', Second passes off Sombra's injuries after his torture as the result of falling down several flights of stairs. Repeatedly. Bizarrely, this actually works.
* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'' fanfic ''Fanfic/{{Pretender}}'' Robin explains his strange voice, which is because he attempted to hang himself and his throat was injured, as having Plegian sand stuck in his throat.
* Referenced in ''Fanfic/TheUniverseDoesntCheat''. Eleya rhetorically asks one of the [[UnwinnableTrainingSimulation Kobayashi Maru exam]] proctors if he thinks the scar on her face is from her hairdresser screwing up.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends'' fanfic ''FanFic/MoreThanMyFriend'' Mac is being abused by his older brother Terrence and his peers. Terrence uses Mac to get him his drugs and beats him up near daily. Their mother is too busy with work to notice, but Frankie does. When she questions Mac about his unusual behavior and bruises he makes up various excuses such as having to do homework or the bruises being from roughhousing with his friends.
* In the ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' PeggySue fic ''Fanfic/IAmNotGoingThroughPubertyAgain'', Sasuke accidentally rips off one of his arms. [[spoiler:He thought Sakura had attached a prosthetic arm against his permission, when in reality he had traveled back in time and was in his twelve year old body.]] When questioned by Kakashi on how he lost his arm within one day, he says he fell down the stairs.
* In ''[[http://archiveofourown.org/works/5710513/chapters/13155583 Renegades]]'' after (another) particularly crappy/demeaning comment from Oliver, Laurel finally punches him in the face breaking his nose and giving him two black eyes. In the next chapter, Thea reveals she forced him to tell everyone his injuries came from a "jet ski accident".
-->'''Laurel:''' ''[incredulous]'' Jet skiing?\\
'''Thea:''' Yeah, it was the douchiest thing I could think of, and now he's telling everyone. You're welcome.
* In ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'', Goku, arriving to fight what's left of the Ginyu Force, one-shots the guy who almost killed Vegeta and then asks Vegeta how he got all beat up. In a ShoutOut to ''Film/FightClub'', Vegeta (with Ghost Nappa's prompting) says he fell down some stairs. Krillin interjects, but stops when Vegeta threatens to throw him down a flight.
* In ''WebVideo/TheJokerBlogs'', [[spoiler:Batman is wounded by Harleen's shotgun blast. He escapes and the next day, it's mentioned on the news that Bruce Wayne was in a nasty hunting accident]].
* In ''[[http://archiveofourown.org/works/6607459/chapters/15117019 Birds Of a Feather]]'' after becoming the Black Canary, Laurel has to make up various excuses for the injuries she receives. Similar to (and possibly inspired by) ''ComicBook/{{Knightfall}}'' above, when she's very badly injured her allies pass it off as her crashing her motorcycle, and actually crash her motorcycle (much to her annoyance) to sell the lie. Oliver isn't fooled, usually because he knows [[SpottingTheThread the injuries don't match the story]], leading to her coming up with a ''another'' lie: that she's been going to underground fight matches.
* A couple from the Theatre/{{Hamilton}} fandom, both from the same series:
** In "[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/6289198 I'm Not Stupid]]", John Laurens' father beats him up and locks him up in the trunk of his car and then stages it so that it looks like he fell in the shower. Emergency services, social workers, and doctors all fall for it, as John doesn't dispute it. His stepmother catches on and leaves his father but is unable to get custody of John.
** In "[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/6224020 Misunderstandings]]", John and Lafayette (who are in a relationship that is based around a pain kink & BDSM) get called out multiple times for abusing each other. Only Eliza, a nurse, figures out what's going on and gives them condoms and advice on safe sex.
* In ''Fanfic/AmbitiousLove'', a few years prior, Kumiko's sister Mamiko got a call that Kumiko had been in an "accident" at home. Mamiko however was well aware that it wasn't an accident but an InterruptedSuicide.
* {{Subverted|Trope}} in ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/13603578/chapters/31229820 Bruises]]''. Since Marinette can't explain the ''real'' reason that she's picking up new bruises on an almost daily basis (namely, that she is secretly a superhero), she's forced to through out an increasingly absurd series of lies to explain her bruising. Unfortunately, her best friend Alya is not convinced. To make matters worse, Alya first notices the bruising right around the time Marinette starts dating a new boyfriend, who she refuses to tell Alya ''anything'' about beyond the fact that he exists (because he's her superhero partner, and revealing that would give away her identity). Alya puts two and two together, and comes to the conclusion that Marinette's in an abusive relationship.
* In ''Fanfic/NotThisTimeFate'', Yang is in the middle of threatening Team [=CRDL=] for throwing sap at Jaune and getting him attacked by Rapier Wasps when they admit it was actually meant for her. After beating the hell out of them for trying to get purple sap in her hair, Yang loudly declares that it's a good thing she killed the Ursa that attacked them.
* ''Fanfic/WeightOfTheWorld'': In a childishly cruel attempt to force America to recover from his trauma and touch aversion, [[PsychopathicManchild Russia]] attacks him in the bathroom, leaving him with noticeable cuts and bruises that include hand-shaped marks around his throat. When confronted about the injuries, America claims he tripped into the shower. Canada, Weiss, and Winter do not believe him and Winter sarcastically asks if he apologized to the shower for tripping into it.
* In ''Fanfic/{{Lost}}'', Professor Oak mentions how years ago he once tried to [[DrivenToSuicide kill himself]] after his son died. When he went to the hospital, he blamed the cut on a Scyther.
* ''Fanfic/RWBYScars'':
** Weiss [[RageAgainstTheReflection punches a mirror]]. She tries to later pass the blood on her sleeve as ketchup. No one buys it.
** The excuse Jacques gave for his daughter Weiss' eye injury is that she had a fencing accident. This is also what Weiss tells people when they ask about her scar. In reality, Weiss [[spoiler:[[SelfHarm gave herself]] the scar]].
* In one chapter of ''[[Fanfic/TheirBond Lotus Jewel]]'', protecting his owner, Zelda's dog Garo bites [[spoiler:Link]] so hard that he tears muscle. [[spoiler:Link]] later tries to pass off his limp as being due to a fall.
* ''Fanfic/GreensMyFavoriteColor'': Harley Quinn is covered in bruises from her boyfriend's abuse. When questioned about them by Poison Ivy, she says that they're from being a criminal and getting into fights with Batman.
* [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12783281/1/A-Feline-s-Birdy-Love A Feline's Birdy Love]] features Connor/Catboy allowing Night Ninja to abuse and enslave him to shield Amaya/Owlette (traumatized by the events of the prequel, which directly involved Night Ninja) and features this. When Greg and Amaya notice blood on his clothes, from the words Night Ninja carved into his stomach and told him to never tell anyone about, he claims he tripped and fell.
* ''Fanfic/FlowersDrenchedInVodka'': Hanayo uses the old "walked into a door" excuse when she's asked about a bruise Eli gave her to her face.
* ''Fanfic/TheLegendOfZeldaParadiseCalling'': When Link inspects Malon's bruises after the bandit attack, he notes that a mark by her left eye looks older than the rest. She insists that she got it today and he lets the matter drop until they get back to the ranch and he sees how Ingo treats her.
[[/folder]]

* OlderThanRadio: In ''The Broken Jug'' (Der zerbrochne Krug) by Heinrich von Kleist, Judge Adam explains his badly wounded head by having stumbled and fallen when standing up from the bed. In fact, he got hit on the head by the fiancé of a young woman he tried to blackmail into having sex with him.

[[folder:Video Games]]
* The prologue of ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'' features tutors of the character coming up to the character shortly after assassination attempts. The player can choose to be frightened and honest, or dismissive and evasive.
-->"It's nothing, Parda. A--cat didn't like me petting it, is all."
* In ''[[VideoGame/{{Fahrenheit}} Indigo Prophecy]]'', the main protagonist cuts a number of deep wounds into his wrist while in a trance near the beginning of the game. When asked by a police officer why there was screaming heard from his apartment the previous night how he incurred these wounds, he claimed that he fell on some broken glass and "freaked out".
-->'''Cop''': Boy, when you cut yourself, you sure go all the way, huh?
* In ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' Sakura apparently often tries to explain her suspicious bruises (courtesy of her brother) this way. Shirou, at least once, beat the ever-loving crap out of Shinji for it. He's not stupid. He's seriously pondering doing it again. Although the incident where Shirou asks Sakura about her bruises early in the game is used to help establish Shinji's character, it is also [[spoiler:a CassandraTruth: These specific bruises ''weren't'' inflicted by Shinji. They're Sakura's still-forming Command Seals, which look like a formless red mark all up and down the arm until a Servant is actually summoned]].
* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'': One gag theory trying to explain Darth Malak's missing jaw, claims he cut himself while [[TestosteronePoisoning shaving WITH A LIGHTSABER!]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Tropico}} 3'', whenever you mark a citizen to be "dealt with", [[ThePollyanna Juanito the radio announcer]] says that they "slipped and fell out of a 3rd floor window, landed on the street and got run over by both an ambulance and a hearse". Not a single drop in approval rating.
* In the adventure ''VideoGame/BlackMirrorVideoGames 2'', the protagonist notices a waitress with bruises on her face. When he asks her about it she says "she fell down the stairs". Darren [[DeadpanSnarker being who he is]] responds with "And your husband was waiting at the end of the staircase with a baseball bat?"
* In ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire'', Kang the Mad wants to escape his employer Gao the Greater and suggests that you arrange for Gao to "fall down a flight of punches".
* During the ''VideoGame/{{Runescape}}'' saga ''Three's Company'', this is how Sir Owen claims he got his massive facial scar. Ozan sarcastically remarks if he shaves with a dragon.
* Satoko in ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' tries to explain some of the results of her uncle's abuse this way.
* In ''Videogame/BatmanTheTelltaleSeries'', Bruce Wayne can use this if he shows up with signs of injury, even when it comes to injuries that would be really hard to explain away as shaving, such as [[spoiler:an EarNotch]].
-->'''Gordon''': What'd you use, a chainsaw?
* During the Inn of Evil side quest in ''VideoGame/RakenzarnTales'', the innkeeper will claim he injured himself in regards to several bloodstains around the place. [[spoiler:It's to cover that these were wounds inflicted upon the people who were eaten by his giant insect hordes.]]
[[/folder]]

* Parodied in [[http://www.lfgcomic.com/page/48 this strip]] of ''Webcomic/LookingForGroup''. Richard lights a pirate on fire. When the captain asks him what happened, he (and the pirate) swear that the third-degree burns came from a fall down the stairs.

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* In ''ComicBook/{{Animorphs}}: The Invasion'', Temrash 114 explains away the injuries his host received from being slapped down a flight of stairs by a fire-breathing hydra alien as being scratched by cats.
* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' is quite fond of this:
** For example, in the comics, Bruce Wayne was once in the hospital and the doctor notes that for a supposed lazy MillionairePlayboy, he has considerable scarring (which is from his work as Franchise/{{Batman}}, WesternAnimation/{{Batman|TheAnimatedSeries}}, and WesternAnimation/{{Batman|Beyond}}). Wayne responded with:
--->'''Wayne:''' I fell from a tree.\\
'''Doctor:''' A tree?\\
'''Wayne:''' Yes, it was a very tall tree.
** One episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'' had him joking that he Cut Himself Shaving to explain a bandage on ''his arm'' (it was actually from a weird chemical Joker injected into him that made him start to act like Joker).
** This was taken to extremes in the '90s comic book arc ''ComicBook/{{Knightfall}}''. In it, then new villain [[Characters/BatmanRoguesGalleryPart1 Bane]] deduces Batman's identity, breaks into the Batcave, battles Batman and ''breaks his back''. In order to explain why Gotham's wealthiest playboy is now paralyzed, they claim that Bruce Wayne was in a car accident, complete with the [[TrueCompanions Batclan]] going out and totaling one of Bruce Wayne's vehicles. Now ''that's'' dedication.
** In an odd turn, an ''actual'' shaving cut saved Batman on one occasion in the early comics. As Bruce Wayne, he met and briefly romanced a woman who, unbeknownst to him, was one of the Joker's henchwomen. Later, as Batman, he's about to be shot by the Joker, but she recognizes the shaving cut and [[TakingTheBullet takes the bullet for him.]]
** ''Film/BatmanBegins'' toys with this trope in the dialog between Bruce and both Alfred and Lucius -- the former suggests he take up polo to explain his bruises, the latter receives a very flimsy handwave for why Bruce had been drugged with a weaponized hallucinogen.
** In more recent stories, part of Bruce Wayne's public persona includes a fondness for extreme sports. That would plausibly explain some of the scarring.
** There is also the scene from ''ComicBook/TheLongHalloween'' where (while Batman) Bruce gets a scratch on his face from Characters/{{Catwoman}}. When they meet up later for a date (as Bruce and Selina) and Selina asks how he got the scratch, he tells her exactly this.
** At the end of ''ComicBook/BatmanHush'', Batman is questioning The Riddler, who's currently under custody. When he doesn't like the answer he gets, he punches Riddler so hard he ends up on the floor. The noise prompts a couple of guards to enter the room.
--->'''Guard:''' What happened?\\
'''Batman:''' He fell.
** Early on in his career the third [[ComicBook/RobinSeries Robin]] Tim Drake ran into some trouble when a councilor at his school didn't buy his excuses for repeated injuries and thought Bruce was abusing him. He eventually convinced her and his father he'd been getting jumped, and since they live in Gotham they accept this as probable. He also frequently uses his skateboarding as an excuse for injuries.
* Marv from ''ComicBook/SinCity'' uses the "cut myself shaving" excuse with his blind mom after the fight at the apartment complex against the dirty cops sent to take him in when he was framed for killing Goldie.
* In ''ComicBook/JonahHex'' the title character sarcastically gives all sorts of unlikely explanations to his massive facial scarring when asked about it, from the traditional "cut myself shaving" to "my toothpick slipped".
* ''ComicBook/ArchieComics'':
** In an old, '50s-era strip, Archie has a black eye. Everyone assumes he got into a fight and lost, despite his vociferous protests. Even his mother doesn't understand how someone could walk into a door. He demonstrates ... and blacks his ''other'' eye, prompting him to decide not to leave the house for a week, as no one will believe he walked into ''two'' doors.
** Another ''Archie'' universe story inverted this trope with Alex Cabot, one of the managers of ''ComicBook/JosieAndThePussycats''. When Alex gets a black eye, he claims that he got it in a fistfight, while everyone else thinks that he walked into a door. Alex continually denies it, but when he gets up to leave he gets nailed in the ''other'' eye by a door. The last panel shows a dazed Alex sitting on the floor with two black eyes, mumbling that it was the same door that got him the first time.
** Yet another ''ComicBook/{{Archie}}'' comic strip had a surprisingly dark example, when you think about it. Archie is ''forced'' by his friends to date Betty because they feel bad for her since Archie always snubs her for Veronica. She's in such a flip to get ready that she slams her cheek AND her forehead and bruises them, but just covers it with makeup. Then her and Archie have to jog through the rain which washes off her makeup, and all the guys at the dance assume he ''roughed her up on the way''. It ends with the guys taking Archie out back and beating him up.
** In ''ComicBook/AfterlifeWithArchie'', when her boyfriend [[DomesticAbuse beats her up]] one night Betty's older sister, Polly, ends up with bruises. The next morning she tries to cover it with makeup but her family still sees the bruise on her eye. Her excuse was that she walked into the closet door.
* In ''ComicBook/TheQuestion'', it's a running gag for Victor Sage to have a snappy response when someone notes he has no face (the desired look of his special mask) such as "Dang those safety razors, you really have to watch them."
* ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse'': In a ''WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck'' story, Donald and Gladstone get into a fistfight against Daisy's wishes. Gladstone excuses his black eye by saying he walked into a door, while Donald says he walked into the same door trying to save Gladstone. Daisy is less than convinced.
* A ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'' arc has a RunningGag/subplot of Peter Parker attempting to explain to his boss his injuries from battling super villains the night before. His excuses included a pot exploding in the microwave, to falling into the gorilla cage at the zoo.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Circles}}'', when Jason returns home and reveals his black eye and says "he hit himself with a locker". Paulie is incredulous but Doug was already aware of what happened and told Paulie that he actually got in a fight due to being teased about his gay fathers.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Manga/AyakashiTriangle'': Matsuri talks to Suzu's supernaturally-ignorant brother after being injured in battle and hesitantly claims he was a bike accident.
* In ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', the character Uryu Ishida once explains his injuries from a fight with hollows to a classroom by this. To hang a lampshade on this, the class believes he's lying.
* In ''Manga/BlueExorcist'', Rin uses 'fell down the stairs' as his excuse for bruises he received in a fight. It gets funny when he attempts to explain his nosebleed.
--> Rin: I landed on an insanely hot babe.
* In ''Anime/{{Monster}}'', when Dr. Tenma finds Dieter on the floor screaming in pain, his legal guardian claims that he fell while standing on a chair. This excuse works for all but thirty seconds before Tenma lifts the boy's shirt and discovers that he is ''covered with scars''. It takes less than ten seconds for Tenma to call bullshit on the guardian's "the ambulance is coming, you can leave now" spiel.
* ''Anime/GaReiZero'': Kagura explains a large cut on her thigh (inflicted by a spirit armed with [[PowerCopying her katana]]) as her "walking through some glass".
* Subverted/parodied in ''Manga/SayonaraZetsubouSensei'': Everyone ''assumes'' Kobushi Abiru is a victim of domestic violence, and her name is even [[MeaningfulName read as]] "a flurry of punches," used in the context of said abuse. [[spoiler:However, her injuries actually stem from her being attacked by animals after pulling their tails.]]
* Parodied in the HilariousOuttakes of ''Anime/{{Texhnolyze}}''. In a "child-safe" redub of a gang fight, mooks exclaim things like "Ow, bee sting!" and "cut myself shaving" as they get shot.
* The titular character of ''Manga/{{Loveless}}'' uses the "fell down stairs" excuse to cover for one of the many times his mother attempted to murder him.
* In ''Manga/{{Change 123}}'' a student fights with a [[{{Ninja}} kunoichi]] whose weapon of choice is a bunch of sharpened keys on a wire (sort of a disguised rope dart). These keys leave a serious wound on the student's leg, but in the school infirmary she tells the nurse that she accidentally cut herself with her own keys. The nurse doesn't buy this story (knowing that normal keys don't leave wounds like this), but pretends to accept it [[spoiler:as she is also a kunoichi, from the same clan as the perpetrator, and has recognized her colleague's ''modus operandi'']].
* Ryouhei from ''Manga/Reborn2004'' tells his sister that he is participating in a boxing tournament whenever she sees him and his friends fighting when it is glaringly obvious that both sides of the fight have every intention to kill and all kinds of dangerous weapons.
* ''Manga/SakuraGari'':
** Masataka explains away the burn mark on his hand that he got from when Katsuragi put his hand in boiling hot tea with "I got these burns when I was helping out in the kitchen because I was careless with the hot water."
** Earlier, when one of the maids [[InterruptedSuicide catches him holding a knife unusually close to his throat]], he claims to be sharpening his pencil. He's a student, so she believes him. [[spoiler:We later discover that she ''does'' know that Souma has been raping him, however.]]
* In ''Manga/FushigiYuugi'', Miaka notices a suspicious cut on Yui's wrist and asks her about it. Yui casually explains it (at first) as a minor injury she sustained upon entering the book. Later, it's revealed that she did that deliberately because she had been attacked and believed she had been raped.
* ''VideoGame/{{Medabots}}'': Henry used that excuse to justify an injury he got as the Phantom Renegade. It worked despite the injury being on his ''forehead''.
* Since the day she transferred Umino, from ''Manga/SatouKashiNoDanganWaUchinukenai'', had been saying she was a mermaid. Nagisa does not believe her nonsense but one day questions her on the bruises on her body. In true Umino fashion she states that they're due to the pollution in the sea. [[spoiler:It's really due to her dad's beatings]]
* Yuuta from ''Manga/ShishunkiBitterChange'' is [[FreakyFridayFlip stuck in the body]] of his elementary classmate, Yui. One day she slapped him and when Yui's mom asked he said he hit a door.
* Yuu of ''Manga/SeraphOfTheEnd'' gets into a fight with the equally HotBlooded Kimizuki. When Yoichi asks him why his face is all bruised up Yuu responds that he walked into a telephone pole.
* In the first episode of ''Anime/StarsAlign'' Maki [[spoiler: gets physically assaulted by his [[AbusiveParents abusive father]] while his mother is at work.]] When a teacher asks about the bruise on his cheek, Maki lies and that says that he fell out of bed.
[[/folder]]

A subversion is a character who really did [[TheKlutz walk into a door]] but everyone assumes they're covering.

[[folder:Literature]]
* The ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' novels imply that this happened to several Spartan trainees during, well, training. In a flashback chapter in ''Literature/HaloFirstStrike'', one Spartan trainee was captured by the OPFOR during a "Capture the Flag" training exercise and became badly injured. His Marine captors claimed he tripped down a flight of stairs... in a one-story building.
* In ''[[Literature/KeepersChronicles Summon the Keeper]]'' by Creator/TanyaHuff, the ''Dudley Do-Right'' character meets a badly bruised woman who claims she walked into a door. In a subversion, this is, in fact, true and she is pathetically clumsy.
* Heavily parodied in the book ''Literature/HowToBeASuperhero'', in which a sidekick explains away rope burns from a supervillain hostage situation to his teacher as him and his adopted father "getting into some really rough stuff." Naturally, this doesn't help the situation.
* Brawling pages in the ''Literature/TortallUniverse'' tend to offer excuses because it's dishonorable to tattle:
** "[[SweetPollyOliver Alan]]" in ''Literature/SongOfTheLioness'' explains away her injuries from being beaten up by Ralon with the excuse, "I fell down." A servant helpfully confirms that Alan ''did'', indeed, fall down... and that Ralon helped him fall down, several times, with his fists.
** Keladry in ''Literature/ProtectorOfTheSmall'' gives the same excuse to Lord Wyldon after her many fights as a BullyHunter even though he keeps trying to get her to tell on them when he accepts the same excuse from the boys. She teaches Owen, a younger page, to do the same.
** Later subverted in Kel's squiring years. Kel takes a soak in the shared bathrooms after a hard day's training. The women there see her bruises and immediately come to her defense, thinking a man beat her. It takes a while for Kel to convince them that she really DID get those injuries from falling... off her horse, repeatedly, while learning how to Tilt.
** Like the pages' standard excuse of "I fell down" to explain injuries from fighting, the standard excuse given for an argument settled in a jousting match is that the participants had an irresolvable difference of opinions in a philosophical debate.
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
** Commander Vimes would come down heavily on any actual police brutality in the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, but he has occasionally referenced the trope as a veiled threat, muttering that certain prisoners ''might'' fall down the stairs on the way to the cells... even though there aren't any. They can find some. Coppers are resourceful like that.
** In ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment'', there's an inversion: the good Lieutenant Blouse manages to, somehow, slice open his hand while doing sword drills on his own. ''[[EpicFail His sword hand.]]'' When William de Worde asks about the injury, Sergeant Jackrum hurriedly whispers, "You should have seen the other five men!"
** In ''Literature/GoingPostal'', a banshee attacks Mr. Groat and Moist sees it, but he doesn't want to discuss what happened. Adora Belle sees through it.
--->'''Moist''': Something fell on him.\\
'''Adora Belle''': Right. Something with big claws.
** There's an inversion, where Vimes ''really did'' cut himself shaving in ''Literature/{{Jingo}}'' but some visitors believe the injury is from a fight.
* Creator/DouglasAdams' ''Literature/TheMeaningOfLiff'' defines "Sluggan" as a facial bruise caused by walking into a door, but which everyone else assumes is the result of a fight with your partner. There's no point trying to tell them what really happened.
* In ''[[Literature/TheGreatBrain The Great Brain at the Academy]]'', Tom challenges his rival Rory to a fight. Since they could get expelled for fighting, he says they can go to the dormitory bathroom, no one will see, and Rory can explain his black eye by saying he fell down the stairs.
* In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix'', Umbridge asks Hagrid how he came to be covered in blood and bruises. He responds, "I tripped."
* In ''Literature/DeadAir'' by Creator/IainBanks, the main character is beaten up by the mob, when his friends question him at work the next day he says that he fell down the stairs and then had the shit beaten out of him.
* Inverted in the novel ''Literature/{{Neverwhere}}''. No one will believe that Richard broke his finger while being tortured, and they just attribute it to his own clumsiness.
-->"What happened, were you in a fight? Actually, you probably just slammed it in a door or something."\\
Richard: "Actually, it was in a...a door."
* OlderThanRadio: In the 1886 novel ''Heart'' by Edmondo D'Amici, Enrico's friend and classmate [[TheWoobie Pietro Precossi]] says similar stuff when people ask him about his bruises. Turns out he's being abused by his alcoholic father
* In John Steinbeck's ''Literature/EastOfEden'', Adam Trask's wife Cathy walks out and leaves him the parting gift of a bullet in the shoulder. When the sheriff questions him, he says that the gun went off while he was cleaning it. Since Adam is a cavalry officer and a really bad liar, this doesn't really fly.
* In Creator/SandyMitchell's TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} novel ''Scourge The Heretic'', in face of a corpse that had been torn to shreds, Kyrlock guesses that he didn't cut himself shaving. (Drake appreciates it; he had been on the verge of vomiting.)
* In ''Film/TheEnglishPatient'', the title character acquires a number of scars during his affair with Katharine Clifton (ranging from punches to a stabbing with a fork). He explains them away as accidents; the rest of the group seem to believe him and decide he's incredibly clumsy.
* The poem "[[http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/human-rights-poem-55-in-detention/ In Detention]]" by South African poet Christopher van Wyck is made up of excuses made by prison officials regarding prisoners who died in their custody.
* ''Literature/ForestKingdom'': In the ''Hawk & Fisher'' spinoff series' book 1, when a noblewoman one-eyed Hawk what became of his eye, he gives the ridiculous excuse that he lost it in a card game. In a later book, he claims to have pawned it.
* Subverted in ''Literature/DoloresClaiborne'' by Creator/StephenKing. Although Joe does have a history of beating her, she stopped him from doing so months before. She really, honestly did simply injure herself by accident. But the checkout lady refuses to believe her. However, both her and Joe do use the large bruise to let him save face by ''pretending'' that he gave it to her. It's complicated.
* In the Swedish novel ''Ondskan'' (The Evil), the main character goes to a BoardingSchoolOfHorrors where the students are punished by the student body through sadistic means, one of them being ''beaten up''. Sometimes, a few get bruised so badly they have to be taken to a nearby hospital, where everyone gives the Fell Down The Stairs explanation. The doctor doesn't buy for a moment and asks what is going on but not before lampshading that it "must be one hell of a long staircase."
* In ''[[Literature/MaximumRide The Angel Experiment]]'', Fang gives this exact explanation to a runaway MIT graduate after he's made the victim of a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown by Ari.
* In Creator/RobinHobb's ''[[Literature/RealmOfTheElderlings Dragon Keeper]]'', Sedric explained coming home at dawn with torn clothes and puffy lips after his first encounter with Hest as being very drunk and falling into a ditch.
* In ''Literature/TheKingdomKeepers'', Finn has to explain away an injury he got from [[EnergyWeapon Energy Weapons]] by saying a bully burned him with a cigarette.
* Subverted in ''[[Creator/MichaelCrichton Airframe]]''. In one scene, the main character is pushed out of an airplane under inspection in a hangar and lands on some safety netting around it, getting bruised in the process. Later on, when someone else asks her how she got those bruises, she says truthfully (though vaguely) that she fell. The woman who asked the question doesn't believe her and gives her a card to a shelter for battered women.
* RoddyDoyle wrote a novel about a battered wife entitled ''The Woman Who Walked Into Doors''.
* In ''This Can't Be Happening At Literature/MacDonaldHall!'' by Creator/GordonKorman, Bruno and Boots kidnap the rival hockey team's mascot (a large domestic cat) before the first game of the season, and it scratches Boots' face. The coach later asks what happened to his face and Boots says he cut himself shaving. The coach says he knows darn well that Boots is too young to be shaving, and that if the scratch came from a cat, he doesn't want to know about it.
* In ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'', when Bella is in the hospital after being attacked by a vampire, the Cullens tell her to explain her wounds this way: "You fell down two flights of stairs and through a window. You have to admit, it could happen."
* In ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' short story "The Warrior", Harry saves a girl from being hit by a hybrid car (its near-silent engine means she doesn’t hear it coming), and when her mother comes to see what happened, Harry spots a bruise on the girl and asks if he gave it to her when he pulled her out of the car's path. The girl says no, she was bruised when she fell off her bike. Harry then asks how that happened without her scraping her hands. The mother's eyes go wide with realization and she promptly marches the girl home. Later in the story, Harry learns that her father had been hitting her, and Harry mentioning it meant that the mother was finally going to leave him with her daughter and that one act saved the girl from a childhood of continued abuse. Which is actually rather a ConvictionByCounterfactualClue, given that it's incredibly easy to fall off a bike without scraping your hands. While the mother may have known or suspected what was going on, there was no reason for Harry to notice anything suspicious.
* In ''Cursor's Fury'' of the ''Literature/CodexAlera'', Crassus attacks Tavi, his superior officer, trying to get back the purse Tavi stole from Crassus's mother, only for Tavi to beat him. Crassus thinks he's going to get cashiered out of the Legion for it until Tavi realizes why he really did it--to protect Tavi from his mother's wrath--and says they don't kick you out of the Legion for falling down the stairs. Crassus then asks what happens if he 'remembers' that Tavi stole his mother's purse, and Tavi responds, in that case, he'll remember that there are no stairs anywhere near where they are.
* In ''Literature/TheWaspFactory'', Frank mentions a relative who moved to South Africa and died when he walked past a police station and was crushed under a black suspect who had fallen out the window and somehow managed to yank all his fingernails out on the way.
* In ''Literature/IKnowWhyTheCagedBirdSings'', Maya Angelou chronicles how, when she was eight years old, her mother's boyfriend molested her, though at that time [[InnocentInaccurate she just understood it as him holding her and making her feel good]]. After molesting her, the bed got wet and he poured a glass of water over the wet spot, telling her that she wet the bed. She got confused because she knew that she didn't wet the bed, and yet she didn't say anything to contradict him. He manages to ensure that this situation of her sleeping with him continues and no one suspects him to be the pedophile that he is until he violently rapes her and her mother finds her bloody underwear that she hid.
* In the ''Literature/{{Holes}}'' companion book ''Literature/StanleyYelnatsSurvivalGuideToCampGreenLake'', the default answer to how one got an injury if ever asked, is: "I slammed the tent door on it." No other answers. Never mind that the tents don't actually ''have'' doors, just canvas flaps -- that is still what you must say. This point is further emphasized when a quiz is held asking the reader how you got a black eye. Was it from a fight? Stepping on a shovel? Not bathing? The right answer is ''still'' "The tent door slammed in your face."
* Near the end of the ''[[Literature/VattasWar Vatta's War]]'' arc of books, a person who suddenly landed in [[spoiler:Rafe Dunbarger's]] bad books (and by assumed extension, Kylara's), is found later with suspicious injuries. He insists that he just fell down a ladder. The medics ask him if he pissed the ladder off first.
* In the Creator/DickFrancis novel "Nerve", Rob the protagonist won't tell a doctor how he'd gotten injuries from being tied and hung up by the wrists in a barn, and the doctor distastefully concludes he'd been involved in some kinky orgy.
* In the ''Literature/{{SPQR}}'' novel ''A Point of Law", Fulvia's late husband Clodius used to come home gravely wounded due to his position as a gangster and tell her he cut himself shaving. This comes up because her new fiancé Curio comes home with a wound he informs her is minor and she [[TalkingTheMonsterToDeath has to be talked out of]] going on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge. Unfortunately for Curio, one of the concessions the authorities make to avert the rampage is launching a thorough investigation, exposing his WoundedGazelleGambit.
* In the Literature/XWingSeries, when Wedge walks in on two of his pilots fighting, one tries to explain that they were [[BlatantLies demonstrating a martial arts move.]] Wedge interrupts to ask them how many times they think he's heard that explanation before.
* In ''[[Literature/TheBelgariad Polgara the Sorceress]]'', Polgara (While living in a town that has precisely one two story building in it), mentions to some of the friends of her recently deceased 'nephew' how insulting she thought an offer a man had made for the family cooperage while the family was still in mourning. The next day Polgara had to set the businessman's broken bones after he fell down the stairs about half a dozen times.
* Squire Roland, in ''[[Literature/TheRiftwarCycle Magician: Apprentice]]'', has a more believable explanation than most. Sergeant of the Guard Gardan still doesn't buy it:
-->'''Roland''': Ah...I was giving Pug a fist-boxing lesson.\\
'''Gardan''': Roland, remind me never to ask you to instruct my men in swordplay -- we couldn't withstand the casualty rate.
* Sara in ''Literature/{{Relativity}}'' manages to hide being a superhero by using stories like this to explain her various injuries. It works for the most part because most people don't hang around with her enough to see ''how many'' injuries she sustains. For people she sees all the time, it doesn't work as well.
-->'''Greg:''' There’s only so many times you can fall off a ladder changing a lightbulb.
* In the Creator/SidneySheldon novel ''Literature/NothingLastsForever'', Dr. Kat Hunter has been roped into working for the mob in order to pay off her brother's debts and also because the kingpin doesn't want his underlings going to the hospital where the staff would have to report their injuries to the police. Her first patient is a man who has gotten the tar beaten out of him, but when Kat asks what happened to him, the kingpin looks her straight in the eye and tells her, [[BlatantLies "He fell down a flight of stairs]]
* In a ''Literature/FabulousFive'' novel, one of the main characters is trying to help a girl who basically has her every move controlled by her smothering, strict, and overprotective parents. At one point, when the girl comes over to her house, the main character and her mother notice a large bruise on her arm. The girl quickly covers it up, claiming to have walked into a door. Not until near the end of the book does the reader learn this was the ''truth'', but that the girl let them think otherwise. Whether because she knew there was no point in arguing as she wouldn't be believed or wanted them to think that her parents were physically abusive as well isn't clear.
* In ''Literature/ShadowKiss'', Brandon Lazar and Brett Ozera explained their torture wounds by claiming they fell.
* Creator/JohnVarley’s ''RedThunder'': “Veneration ‘Vinnie’ Broussard fell fifty feet from a live oak(…) Or so (his father) Avery said.” SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome occurs. “The parish coroner said that was hogwash(…) The sheriff looked at the tree (…) and concluded there was no possible way to fall through it and receive forty-eight bruises(…) Avery was sentenced to one year for manslaughter.”
* In ''Literature/WolfHall'', young Thomas Cromwell explains his bruises by saying that he walked into a door, privately adding that it was a door named Walter Cromwell.
* In ''Literature/AlexisCarew: Into the Dark'', Alexis fights off a drunken crewman who sexually assaulted her, then lies to the bosun and the captain that "he fell" to explain his injuries, not wanting a man hanged on her account. They don't buy it for a minute but since there were no other witnesses, they flog him for being drunk on duty and let him go. It all works out: the other crew take it as an act of mercy and take a shine to Alexis, and [[spoiler:Alan quits drinking and later has a RedemptionEqualsDeath moment]].
* In ''Literature/IAmJ'', J's friend Melissa claims that her [[SelfHarm self-inflicted cuts]] are caused by her cats scratching her.
* In the ''Literature/WarriorCats'' book ''Veil of Shadows'', Kitescratch is one of the cats that attempts to kill the [[GrandTheftMe fake]] Bramblestar, and manages to escape during the ensuing fight. He tells his Clanmates afterward that his injuries were from an owl, but they don't really believe him.
** Earlier, in the fourth arc, several cats secretly go to the Dark Forest (the cat version of hell) in their dreams in order to get some literal TrainingFromHell to be better warriors. The wounds they get in the training show up on the real cats in the waking world, and they make excuses for where these injuries came from, like saying they were attacked by rogue cats.
* ''Literature/MiracleCreek'': The week before his death, Henry had scratches on his arms, which he told Kitt were from bug bites and Detective Heights were from being scratched by the neighbor's cat. [[spoiler:In fact, Elizabeth scratched him for making them late to speech therapy. Later, she said, "Oh, sweetie, look at that scratch! [[{{Gaslighting}} Have you been playing with that cat again? You need to be more careful.]]"]]
* ''Literature/WickedGood'': When Judge Murphy asks Archer where her black eye came from, she says that she slipped on an ice cube and hit her face on the kitchen counter. In fact, Rory hit her, for the first time in his life.
* When Hoshi from ''Literature/HoshiAndTheRedCityCircuit'' is beaten up in a hate crime, she tells her integration officer that she fell downstairs, as she knows she could be stripped of her freedoms if she shows any sign of weakness.
* In ''Literature/HarmonicFeedback'', Justin gets into a fistfight with Naomi's douchey boyfriend Scott, giving him a bloody nose. When a neighbor calls the police, Justin tells him he tripped and smacked his nose on the coffee table playing Wii.
* ''Literature/WhereTheCrawdadsSing'':
** Kya tells Tate that her bruise [[spoiler:from being punched by Chase during an AttemptedRape]] is from running into a door in the middle of the night.
** She tells her lawyer, Tom Milton, that the scratches on her arms are from bug bites. They're really from SelfHarm.
* In ''Literature/LolaRose'', Jayni says that if Nikki has to go to hospital after being beaten by her husband, she never tells on him, instead claiming she got her injuries tripping and falling over, or some such. After Jay punches her and gives her a bloody nose for defending Jayni, Nikki tells a cab driver she got it walking into a lamppost. He instantly guesses she's actually been hit by her husband and suggests going to the police. Nikki gives the same excuse to a hotel receptionist, though he's barely paying attention (it's ''that'' kind of [[NoTellMotel hotel]]).
[[/folder]]

* Music/SuzanneVega's "Luka", a song very obviously about child abuse, runs with the "walked into the door again" approach in amidst claims of being clumsy and recommendations not to ask. It's complete with LyricalDissonance since the song is very upbeat and happy sounding until you hear the lyrics.

Another variant, found in military fiction and military science fiction, has two men — often an officer and an NCO — engage in a brawl in a nice, quiet, out-of-the-way spot to settle some point of honor, with the unspoken agreement being that each will cover for the other's injuries (frequently by claiming to have been practicing hand-to-hand combat techniques.) This is because in many of these settings, striking a superior officer, regardless of the reason, is an offense worthy of court-martial and with very heavy penalties.

For the lethal version, see TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch. If he ''really did'' cut himself shaving, it's ThereWillBeToiletPaper. A sister trope to BluffingTheAuthorities and AbuseMistake, both of which it can overlap with.

Not to be confused with DangerouslyCloseShave, which is about the barber cutting ''other'' people.

For the lethal version, see TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch. If he ''really did'' cut himself shaving, ThereWillBeToiletPaper. Sister trope to (and may overlap with) BluffingTheAuthorities and AbuseMistake.

"I fell on...several barbecue forks?"

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Italian painter Caravaggio made many enemies in his short and tempestuous life. Once when laid up in bed with slash wounds on his throat and left ear, he told a clerk of the Roman courts that he had wounded himself with his own sword while falling down the stairs, rather than name his attacker(s) and face further retribution.
* Dr. UsefulNotes/RichardFeynman - top theoretical physicist, safe cracker and bongo player - loved to frequent nightclubs in the rougher end of town. One night, he had an altercation with a drunk in the toilets at one such club and gained a black eye in the encounter. The next day his colleagues asked how he got it. "[[SarcasticConfession I had a fight in a nightclub washroom]]," he replied, to which they laughed and said "Oh Feynman, you're such a kidder..." (Apparently he started his first lecture by glaring up one-eyed at the students, and snarling "Any questions...?")
* People who like UsefulNotes/{{BDSM}} (or just rough sex) run into difficulties with this; it's hard to explain away ("say, these look like whip marks"), and the truth can be very embarrassing. Families and friends can end up conflicted as well. Many professional tops advertise their ability to leave marks or not, as the customer prefers, for just this reason.
* Supposedly, legendary manager Casey Stengel, when running one of the horrid New York Mets teams from the early 1960s, saw one of his pitchers in spring training with a bandage on his thumb. When he asked the pitcher what happened, the player responded that he had cut himself shaving. Stengel released the player from the team because he couldn't figure out why on earth he'd be shaving his thumb.
* NFL wide receiver Brandon Marshall, who seriously injured his hand when he slipped on a UsefulNotes/McDonalds bag and put his hand through a glass [=TV=] stand while wrestling with his family. Due to his checkered legal history, many commentators were skeptical of this story, but it ultimately turned out to be true.
* Infielder Clint Barmes broke his collarbone during his rookie year with the Colorado Rockies carrying a package of deer meat (it was a gift from teammate Todd Helton) up the stairs to his apartment. In order to avoid embarrassing Helton, Bames claimed he fell while "carrying groceries".
* Black Metal musician Varg Vikernes, after he murdered his [[Music/{{Mayhem}} bandmate]] Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth, claimed that he stabbed Aarseth in self-defense and Aarseth's TWENTY-THREE stab wounds were from Aarseth falling on broken glass during the struggle. It is more plausible when you know that Aarseth was only wearing underwear at the time.
* In a subversion/possible straight example, Soccer player David Seaman apparently broke a bone reaching for a remote.
* Although today best known for the line of hair products bearing his name, hairstylist Vidal Sassoon was, in fact, a total BadassNormal who fought with a Jewish resistance group called the 43 Group. In post-UsefulNotes/WorldWarII London, there were a fairly large number of fascist and anti-Semitic groups who would heckle and harass Jews and vandalize Jewish-owned shops and businesses; the 43 Group fought back, often with violent brawls resulting. One day, after a particularly bad fight, Vidal showed up to work with a badly bruised face. A client said "My God, Vidal, you look terrible! What happened?" Sassoon [[DeadpanSnarker replied]] "I tripped on a hairpin."
* American Comedian Louis CK had a bit about how his daughter got a black eye due to walking into a door, and he coincidentally took her out for ice cream afterward. The other people in the ice cream place gave him dirty looks, assuming he abused his daughter. He exclaimed how offended he was that they thought a black eye was all she would have if he had hit her.
* According to his book ''Growing Up Brady,'' Barry Williams sustained a nasty facial cut in a car accident during the later seasons of ''Series/TheBradyBunch''. When he reported to the set the next day, the producer slapped a Band-Aid on the cut and decided that Greg Brady had "cut himself shaving." Barry thought, "What does Greg shave with, a lawnmower?"
* In UsefulNotes/{{NASCAR}}, Carl Edwards once managed to break/damage something (either his leg, arm, or hand) while playing Frisbee. His friends asked him why in the world he'd be honest about the origin of his injury, pointing out he could have claimed he was rock-climbing or, y'know, almost anything other than playing a game that children are able to participate in without receiving a scratch.
* "Riding a motorcycle in the shower" and "fell off his tennis racquet" have become popular euphemisms in UsefulNotes/FormulaOne racing to explain why a driver has missed a race due to injuries outside of racing, especially so after a mysterious extra-curricular injury sidelined Juan Pablo Montoya a few years ago.
* Self-harmers often use similar excuses - scratches from their cat or dog seem to be a popular excuse. Because of this, people whose wounds really do come from their pets may be suspected of self-harm.
* People in the Society for Creative Anachronism engage in sport fights; they wear armor and use sticks rather than metal weapons, but it's quite possible to get bruises and broken bones. So: if you're a female SCA fighter and your doctor asks where you got the marks, do ''not'' offhandedly say, "Oh, my husband and I were fighting..." Even sport fencers get this sort of thing ''all'' the time. Foil and epeé leave strange little round bruises, saber cuts can look like whip marks, cuts can last for weeks, and sometimes it's possible to draw blood despite the protective equipment.
* Falling from your bike (either in dirt cycling, mountain biking, [=BMXing=], or even when riding on rough ground in some parts of town) can give weird injuries ''despite'' protective equipment, like a stab wound in the thigh from falling over a dead tree branch or bruises on the torso (which look like bruises from a beating) from falling over a rock or stump.
* Sufferers of CIPA injure themselves in all sorts of ways, especially when they're too young to know better because the disease prevents them from feeling pain. Early on, it leads to false accusations of abuse. Later, shaving is one of the many activities in which they have to take extreme care. Similarly, children with osteogenesis imperfecta have been wrongly believed to be abuse victims due to their frequent broken bones.
** Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome is another disorder that can cause this. People with this disorder bruise easily and vividly as well as being prone to joint dislocations, which means they can end up with injuries that, without the context of the disorder, would seem suspicious. Exacerbating the issue, Ehlers-Danlos can also cause difficulties with balance and spatial accuity, so the true explanations of their injuries can end up coming off as excuses (so,for instance, a person with Ehlers-Danlos is more likely than the general population to ''actually'' walk into a door, and have bruises to show for it).
* Martial artists, due to the very nature of their sport, are quite likely to get injuries during sparring even if they wear protective clothing. Younger martial artists who haven't learned proper control yet are especially likely to walk away from a training session with bruises from their peers, and it can look like they got a serious beating from an abuser.
** Some martial arts with focuses on holds and escaping from holds can result in bruises to the wrists or, in some cases, bruises around the throat. These can look rather nasty.
** This gets even more awkward if a young martial artist is training alongside a parent who accidentally injures them. It can lead to one of those rare situations where saying "Dad punched me in the face last night" is both true and not a reason to call child services.
* Some chronic eye conditions result in the patient's vision being narrowing progressively. They cannot see objects placed even slightly to their left or right. So, yes, they do run into doors all the time.
* When San Francisco Giants second baseman Jeff Kent broke his wrist during spring training in 2002, he claimed he landed on it badly when he fell off his truck while washing it. It turned out he hurt it performing wheelies and other tricks on his motorcycle (in direct violation of his contract); this probably contributed to his leaving the team at the end of the season even after making it to the World Series. This is a fairly common sort of thing among professional athletes who injure themselves doing something forbidden by their contract (generally skiing or motorcycle riding). Other notable examples include a stab wound to the stomach while opening a DVD case and a cut hand requiring 40 stitches received while cleaning bagpipes.
* A woman wrote to Dear Prudence citing her coworkers' concern over the bruises that she often had on her arms and legs. They were clearly not believing her vague excuses and thinking that her boyfriend was beating her when in truth, they were engaging in ''consensual'' S&M play.
* In surprising frequency doctors are confronted with a patient, of either gender, who in act of self-pleasuring or some rather kinky consensual sex have managed to jam something in one of their orifices. The excuses for how that particular object got there range, the most common being, "I tripped and fell on it" ([[FridgeLogic naked for some reason]]...) to ridiculously elaborate stories worthy of a teen comedy film. In fact, the excuses are often more amusing that the injury itself. The kicker is that whilst a doctor will indeed write the patient's account of events, they will also note what they believe ''actually'' happened. The general advice to anyone in that unfortunate situation is basically: Just come clean and promise you'll not do it again. [[SeenItAll They've seen it all before]].
* One of the notorious West German terrorists, the Baader-Meinhoff Group, was found dead in his cell. The official explanation was that a gun had been smuggled in and he had committed suicide. Despite the fact that to do so he would have had to have shot himself in the base of the neck so that the bullet exited through his forehead at an angle virtually impossible for someone to have done to themselves.
** In the Creator/TomClancy book ''Literature/TheSumOfAllFears'', the imprisoned terrorist was said to have shot himself in the head... [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill three times]].
--->''"He had a real death grip on the gun."''
* [[http://imgur.com/gallery/vXAwAr8 This newspaper clipping]], where a man who tried to steal a laptop, then stabbed a marine who was at a Toys for Tots collection, was taken to the hospital later for a dozen severe injuries sustained, according to the police report, [[BlatantLies when he tripped on the curb]].
* This sort of thing appears in the US Military quite a bit, particularly in training camps. Reasons vary, but one can expect that if there's someone in the camp that is making life difficult for the rest of the troops in the unit, those troops will find ways to take their anger out on the individual. And they will make it very obvious to said trooper that if they tell the instructors the truth, worse will happen. As a result, this excuse comes up when the instructors ask about the injuries. While the instructors know the truth already, at that stage there is nothing that they can legally do about it unless the trooper in question makes a case of it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* On ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDragonJakeLong'', Rose claimed to have sprained her ankle at the family reunion she had supposedly been at that weekend. In reality, she was injured while fighting Jake in her alter ego as Huntsgirl. (You'd think Jake would have noticed the coincidence...)
* In ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'' episode "The", Meatwad's eyes become horribly obscured as a result of Shake using burned styrofoam and having raw chicken scattered around the house. After Frylock notes the damage his eyes have, Meatwad tries to casually claims he fell down the stairs, except Frylock immediately points out the house doesn't have stairs.
* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2012'': In the episode "I Think His Name is Baxter Stockman", the Turtles return home after being beaten up by Baxter Stockman's upgraded PoweredArmor. Splinter catches them in the act and asks about their injuries, and after a few minutes of them stammering and trying to come up with an excuse, Mikey claims they were hit by a bus. Splinter doesn't buy it for a second.
* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'':
** In the episode "Wasted Talent," Stewie tries to watch television, but is distracted by the poor piano playing of one of Lois's students. When Lois leaves the room briefly, Stewie sweeps in and [[OffscreenCrash beats up the student]]. When Lois returns and sees all of the injuries of the piano student, he tells her, at Stewie's prompting, that "I fell?"
** Then there's the episode where Stewie beats up Brian twice for not paying him some betting money on time. Later Brian comes limping into the living room, covered in bandages, and someone asks him what happened. Stewie makes a threatening gesture and Brian hastily replies that he "fell down the stairs'', prompting Stewie to say "Ooh, you should be more careful!"
** Yet ''another'' Stewie example -- he, Chris, and Brian are in a car, and Chris was claiming not to be responsible for getting caught with some alcohol at school (it really was his friends). Stewie orders the car pulled over. Cut to him relentlessly spanking a sobbing Chris and demanding, "What do you say if your teachers ask about your bruises?" "I got hit with a baaase-baaall."
** In "Screams of Silence: The Story Of Brenda Q," Brenda says her finger is bandaged up because "My (her) finger fell downstairs." In reality, it's clear that her BastardBoyfriend, Jeff, broke it.
* In ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'', one comedic short involves a couple at a family abuse help-clinic. The man asks what they could do about their situation, and the clinic official asks: "Well, have you tried Nerf doors?" The couple looks at each other for a moment and the man replies: "What about stairs; we're going to need some Nerf stairs too," followed by a nod from the woman.
* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' turns this one on its head with thorough use of NotWhatItLooksLike. A stressed Roger gives Francine a black eye, which she tells the neighbors came from running into a door. Later on, she trips over the mop and bruises the ''other'' eye on a door for real, explaining it by innocently remarking "It was my fault for leaving the mop out". Naturally, they assume Stan is beating Francine and call the cops on him. None of this is helped by the fact that Stan, under house arrest, is lazing about in a bathrobe and asking questions like "How ''did'' you get hurt?" (in complete honesty), making him look like the stereotypical wife-beating scumbag.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** In one episode Snake comes into Dr. Nick's surgery with a bleeding stomach. His reasoning: "I like, fell onto a bullet, and it like, drove itself into my gut..." Not missing a beat, the receptionist casually ticks off "liquor store robbery" on her clipboard. Dr. Nick tells him to save the stories for the courts and leads him back to the office.
** In another episode, Homer is seen to be choking Bart on TV... with Doctor Hibbert watching. Hibbert remarks something like "So ''that's'' how he got all those bruises on his trachea! Tight bowtie, my ass..."
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS19E9EternalMoonshineOfTheSimpsonMind Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind]]", Marge says her black eye is due to walking into a door. Wiggum voices his skepticism and then walks into a door himself.
** In "I'Doh!-bot" Homer can't build a good robot for Bart to compete in [[BlandNameProduct Robot Rumble]] so he does the fighting. When Lisa asks about his injuries, he explains they are various bug bites and wounds.
** When Homer hires the Mafia to help Marge's pretzel business, she delivers some to Skinner who answers his door with a bandaged wrist. She asks what happens and a hidden goon behind him whispers "*mumble mumble* boating accident". Skinner repeats robotically "I believe it was a boaking ''[sic]'' accident."
* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'':
** The first episode had the subversion. Bobby and Peggy end up with bruises thanks to the non-athletic Bobby throwing around a baseball. A social worker [[AbuseMistake assumes that Hank is physically abusive]] and tries to get Bobby taken away. However, his supervisor calls him out on the fact that he was jumping to conclusions and didn't bother doing any of the actual investigative work involved in abuse cases, which gets the social worker ReassignedToAntarctica.
** In "Leanne's Saga" Bill begins dating Luanne's mother. When she falls off the wagon, she resorts to her abusive ways and Bill takes the brunt, leading to him showing up in the alley with a black eye. When asked about it, he explains:
--->'''Bill:''' That's an interesting story. You know what? I was walking... I was walking. And I walked into a door.\\
'''Dale:''' ''[suspiciously]'' Wait a minute. How was that interesting?
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'', [=SpongeBob=] walks into the Krusty Krab with a black eye and the others question how he got it. In response, he makes up a bunch of ridiculous stories about fighting this guy from his dream. Eventually, he is forced to tell the truth when the guy does show up. The truth: he slipped on a tube of toothpaste and he hit himself in the eye with a wrench.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}'':
-->'''Dr. Rockzo the Rock n' Roll Clown''' (he does cocaine): What's that, judge? Why's my nose bleedin'? Well, you see, uh... I fell dooowwwwwn.
* Subverted in a ''[[WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle Mr. Peabody and Sherman]]'' short. When Mr. Peabody asks Sherman where he got a black eye, he says he ran into a door. Sherman really meant Eddie Door from across the street.
* ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'': In "Purple Rain-Union", The kids gang up on their babysitter Jen, tickling her, but she has issues with tickling and reflexively punches Tina, giving her a black eye. To save her job, Louise suggests everyone gets black eyes, so they all punch each other, later giving no explanation of how it happened.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}} [[WesternAnimation/ArcherDreamland Dreamland]]'' has this exchange:
-->'''Kreiger:''' ''[explaining his black eye]'' I...walked into a door? Repeatedly?\\
'''Charlotte:''' Oh yeah...my mother used to do that.
* In ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', after being raped by President Garrison, Paul Ryan states to the press that his black eye came from falling on a doorknob and the semen on his face is just "doorknob cum".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* The phrase is seen in the trailer for ''Film/JonahHex''.
-->'''Random gunslinger:''' Hey Hey! [[TooDumbToLive What happened to your face?]]\\
''[Hex shoots the gunslinger in the face without looking away from his drink]''\\
'''Hex:''' Cut myself shaving. What happened to yours?
* ''Film/{{Chinatown}}'': When asked about his cut nose, the lead character gives a reply that would fit into the ''Film/ChasingAmy'' scar comparison scene:
--> Your wife got excited. She crossed her legs a little too quick.
-->'''Yelburton:''' My goodness, what happened to your nose?\\
'''Jake Gittes:''' I cut myself shaving.
* In ''Film/ToLiveAndDieInLA'', Secret Service agents are posing as businessmen to bust a famous counterfeiter. One of the agents gets a black eye during a prolonged chase and, when asked by the counterfeiter where the shiner came from, he replies: "I got hit by a tennis ball."
* ''Film/FamilyBusiness'' stars Creator/SeanConnery, Creator/DustinHoffman, and Creator/MatthewBroderick as three generations of crooks. Anticipating his grandson having to spend a year in jail, Connery tells him to find the biggest guy there and give him a beat down, and no one will bother him, and everyone knows the story is "He fell". At the end, it's Connery who ends up on a paddy wagon with a dozen others on their way to the big house. Someone gets mouthy, Connery clobbers him. When the cop opens the sliding window to the cab area and asks what happened, everyone says, in unison, "He fell."
** And, in an earlier scene, it's [[AvertedTrope averted]]. Vito really ''does'' cut himself shaving on the morning he and Jesse meet with Adam's lawyer.
* In the TV movie ''Film/NoOneWouldTell'' Candace Cameron's character tries to explain all her bruises this way to her best friend Nikki, and other people, when in reality her abusive boyfriend Bobby has been hitting her.
* In ''Film/{{Philadelphia}}'', Creator/TomHanks's character, attempting to hide his AIDS, explains a cancerous skin marking as being a bruise that he sustained from being hit by a tennis ball.
* In ''Film/KindergartenCop'', Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger gets the "I fell down" excuse from a little boy and his mother when he (the kid, not Arnold) keeps showing up to class with fresh bruises. Naturally, Arnold ain't buying it, so he confronts the abusive father and, after laying down the cardinal rule of "You hit the kid, I hit ''you''," [[PapaWolf proceeds to beat the ever-lovin' crap out of him]], much to the delight of the principal.
* The narrator of ''Film/FightClub'', is asked to explain his fighting injuries to a doctor. His friend [[spoiler: and alternate personality]] suggests that he "fell down some stairs." The narrator agrees. The repetition makes a lot more sense when you learn [[spoiler:that "Tyler" is an alternate personality as the doctor wouldn't have heard him speaking as he isn't really there]].
* Parodied cheerfully by Creator/HughJackman's character in ''Someone Like You'', who claims that he ''bit'' himself shaving.
* In ''Film/OneNightAtMcCools'', Creator/LivTyler's character Jewel received a black eye in an accident. A police officer later sees her at her boyfriend's house; he immediately assumes that the boyfriend had beat her and kicks him out of his own house. The boyfriend keeps imploring her to tell the officer the truth, but she says absolutely nothing the entire time because she's a {{Manipulative B|astard}}itch.
* ''Film/SpiderMan1'': The Green Goblin sets a building on fire as bait for Spider-Man, then ambushes him for a fight after Spider-Man rescues all the trapped victims. In the resulting fight, the Goblin lobs several shurikens at Spider-Man, one of which cuts his left arm. Then at [[VillainOverForDinner Thanksgiving dinner]], Aunt May and [[Characters/MarvelComicsNormanOsborn Norman Osborn]] notice Peter bleeding from the cut. Peter claims to Harry, Aunt May and Mary Jane that he was knocked down by a bike messenger, but Norman recognizes it as the one he gave Spider-Man in the burning building.
* Invoked in ''Film/DrStrangelove''. When Mandrake tells Colonel Guano that General Ripper shot himself in the bathroom, Guano skeptically asks if it was "while he was shaving?" Notable in this instance that Mandrake was telling the truth; knowing that Mandrake was the one person who could provide a full explanation for what was really going on, Ripper deliberately lathered up his face before committing suicide to make it seem as though Mandrake had shot him.
* In ''Film/TheArtOfSelfDefense'', Thomas claims he's wearing bandages on his wrists due to weightlifting. [[spoiler:It's really to cover bite marks received when he killed Casey's dachshund. Casey executes him after seeing the wound.]]
* In ''Film/TheDirtyDozen'', repeated shenanigans are explained by a character saying "he slipped on a bar of soap." At one point, the chief MP complains that "Everybody's slipping on soap."
* In ''Film/TheElephantMan'', a doctor is called to examine the badly-wounded titular sideshow performer. The circus manager, Bytes, answers that "He fell. He's a clumsy soul. Never looks where he's going, but that's alright. He has me to take care of him." And all the while he's saying this, his sidekick is giving some very meaningful glances at Bytes' walking stick.
* Parodied in ''Film/SuperheroMovie'' in one of its few genuinely funny moments. Dragonfly and the BigBad get into a fight right before Thanksgiving dinner (in a scenario lifted directly from ''Spider-Man'', just like most of the movie). Whenever somebody points out one of their cuts, they both come up with increasingly-bizarre excuses.
* ''Film/TenaciousDInThePickOfDestiny'' features a dour waitress played by Amy Poehler who, when asked how she received her black eye, she hesitates and mumbles, "Burned myself with a curling iron." In the deleted scenes, she gives various other lame excuses.
* In the movie ''Film/VickyCristinaBarcelona'', Vicky tells her husband that she is going to lunch with her professor when she is actually going to see a man who she is sexually attracted to. While she is at the man's house, his ex-wife shows up with a gun and ends up shooting Vicky in the hand. She tells her husband that her "professor" was showing her the gun when it accidentally went off.
* An {{inver|tedTrope}}sion in the interrogation in ''Film/{{Scarface|1983}}'', notable for its {{bowdlerise}}d rewording (from the infamous "melon farmer" version):
-->'''Original:''' How'd you get that scar? Eatin' pussy?\\
'''Hilarious:''' How'd you get that scar? Eatin' pineapple?
* In ''Film/UnderSiege'', Commander Krill says he cut himself shaving as an explanation for Ryeback slashing his face.
* Played straight in ''Film/SomeLikeItHot'' with the gangster Spats and the federal agent investigating a murder that Spats is a suspect in.
-->'''Federal Agent:''' You shave with your spats on?\\
'''Spats:''' I ''sleep'' with my spats on!
* ''Film/{{Thunderball}}'' begins with James Bond fighting it out with a bad guy in widow drag wielding a fireplace poker. Later, when a physical therapist (a hot one) is examining him, she comments on a scar on his back:
-->'''Bond:''' Got it from a widow.\\
'''Therapist:''' Really -- I thought you'd be just the type for a widow.\\
'''Bond:''' No, he didn't care for me at all.
* In ''Film/MildredPierce'', Wally says this is where he got the cut on his hand when he was framed for murder.
* The Bowler in ''Film/MysteryMen'' says, regarding the death of her father (the original Bowler) "The police ruled my father's death a suicide. They said he fell down an elevator shaft. Onto some bullets."
* ''Film/SpaceCowboys'' has "slipped in the shower" as the explanation of bruises from a fight. (One of the participants even goes: "How did you know?" when asked if this is what happened.)
* ''Film/TheWaterboy'': Bobby tells his Mama a fake story of an escaped gorilla that punched him in the eye to cover up his black eye from playing football which Mama forbids.
* In ''Film/{{Stalag 17}}'', the Geneva representative asks Sefton who beat him. Sefton's reply: "Nobody beat me. We were playing pinochle. It's a rough game."
* In ''Film/TheKarateKid2010'', Dre excuses his black eye to Mr. Han as tripping and hitting a pole. Mr. Han responds that it's an "interesting" pole.
* Earlier than that, in ''Film/TheKarateKid1984'', Daniel uses the "fell off my bike" excuse on his mom and Mr. Miyagi to hide how he got his black eye (from [[TheBully Johnny]]). His mom buys it without question, but [[TheMentor Mr. Miyagi]] quips, "lucky not hurt hand."
* In ''Film/TheSantaClause'', Scott (at his first stage of his body turning into Santa) explains to the executives his sudden weight gain is from a bee sting. When the execs are ordering lunch, most of the others order things like fish or salads; Scott orders a large hot-fudge sundae, with big, chocolate cookies on the side.
-->'''Executive:''' Bee sting, huh?\\
'''Scott:''' A ''big'' bee.
* In ''Film/{{Yellowbeard}}'', a bar fight with Blind Pew leaves the entire tavern littered with corpses.
-->'''Clement:''' What happened?\\
'''Betty:''' Plague!\\
'''Clement:''' Plague?\\
'''Betty:''' All sudden like! Lucky I was out.\\
'''Clement:''' That man's got a sword in him!\\
'''Betty:''' He fell on it.
* In ''Film/KillBill Volume 1'', The Bride and Vernita Green are having a knock-down-drag-out slugfest when Vernita's daughter Nikki comes home from school and they have to call off the fight.
-->'''Nikki:''' Mommy, what happened to you and the TV room?\\
'''Vernita:''' Oh... That good-for-nothing dog of yours got his little ass in the living room and acted a damn fool. That's what happened, baby.\\
'''Nikki:''' ''[understandably skeptical]'' Barney did ''this''?
* Every time someone gets beaten up in ''Film/{{Scum}}''.
-->'''Warder:''' What happened?\\
'''Boy:''' I fell.
* In ''Film/EightMile'', after getting his ass beat, [[Music/{{Eminem}} Rabbit]] walks into his mom's trailer, and she asks what happened. "I fell down the stairs." [[BlatantLies The stairs in front of their house is comprised of only two steps.]]
* In ''Film/TheProfessional'', Mathilda tells Leon that she fell off a bike, more than once. She seems to figure nevertheless that he knows the truth of her [[AbusiveParents abusive father]].
* When Peter Loew of ''Film/VampiresKiss'' is asked about the bandage covering the bite marks on his neck, he says he cut himself shaving.
* ''Film/TheHuntForRedOctober'': An inconvenient political officer "slips on his tea." Although Sean Connery's character at least has the foresight to actually spill some tea, giving his story some plausibility.
* In ''Film/OneHundredFeet'', Creator/FamkeJanssen's character didn't cover for her abusive husband back when he was alive, but when she's under house arrest and getting beaten up by his ghost, she has to resort to these sorts of excuses, since the truth wouldn't be plausible.
* Discussed in ''Film/BatmanBegins''. When Bruce Wayne comes home bruised after his first night as Batman, Alfred suggests he should take up a suitably injury-prone hobby as cover against future mishaps - polo.
-->'''Bruce Wayne:''' ''[disgusted]'' I'm not learning polo, Alfred.
* Rather than admit to being beaten up by the female [[TheDragon Dragon]] in ''[[Film/RushHour Rush Hour 2]]'', Carter tells Lee, "I slipped and I fell."
* The Creator/JohnWayne film ''Film/SandsOfIwoJima'' has two marines explain away their fighting as being hand-to-hand combat training.
* Played with in ''Film/TheDevilsBrigade'', where actual hand-to-hand combat training serves as a cover for characters to settle scores with each other.
* In ''Film/CaptainClegg'', Harry Cobtree is caught with a bullet wound in his arm.
-->'''Captain:''' Cut yourself?\\
'''Harry:''' ''[smirks, gestures at his face]'' Shaving.
* ''Film/SleepingWithTheEnemy''. Battered wife Laura tells her swimming class classmates that she also takes gymnastics lessons in order to explain "all those terrible bruises."
* Nearly every death that happens in ''Film/HotFuzz'' is ''assumed'' to be this, to the point where the locals' stubborn insistence sends Sgt. Angel into a classic EnragedByIdiocy meltdown.
-->'''Angel:''' *slamming a coin into TheSwearJar* Leslie Tiller was [[PrecisionFStrike FUCKING]] murdered!
* In ''Film/HacksawRidge'', Private Desmond Doss (a pacifist who signed up to serve as a medic) gets clobbered in the middle of the night by a bunch of his fellow Army trainees, who are sick of his refusal to use a gun. In the morning, when his drill sergeant asks who beat him, Doss answers with this trope.
--> '''Sgt. Howell:''' Well, what the hell are you saying, Doss? That you bruised half your body sleeping?
--> '''Doss:''' I ... I sleep pretty hard.
* ''Film/TheCriminal'': After Kelly is thrashed from his ankles to his neck, he tells the prison doctor that he fell down the stairs.
* In ''Film/JesseJamesMeetsFrankensteinsDaughter'', Jesse unconvincingly attempts to explain away hank's gunshot wound by saying he shot himself while cleaning his gun.
* This is the explanation Pa Rusk gives when Sheriff Buck asks him his head his covered in blood in ''Film/HeadlessHorseman''.
* In ''Film/{{Juncture}}'', Anna gets injured when one of her targets fights back and strikes her several times with a pker. When her housemate and her boyfriend see the vicious cuts left on her back, she claims that she slipped leaving the jet and landed on her back on the stairs.
* Mikey from ''Film/DominickAndEugene'' is being beaten by his father. He tells Nicky his bruises are from falling over.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/AndThenThereWereNone2015'' changes Blore's crime of false testimony against a frail man to beating him to death for being arrested on a charge of "degeneracy" (i.e., being homosexual in public). When the gramophone record charges Blore with the murder, Blore claims that the man "fell down the steps to his cell."
* In the ''Series/{{Angel}}'' episode "[[{{Recap/AngelS05E08Destiny}} Destiny]]", Spike and Angel have a massive brawl. Upon returning, when Angel shows up bloody and bruised, Fred asks, "What happened?!", and his response is, "I fell down some stairs. Big stairs." When Spike shows up later looking very similar, Fred's response is, "Stairs, huh?"
* ''Series/{{Arrow}}''. In "Crucible", Oliver Queen shows up at a Queen Consolidated investor party right after taking on a gang armed with automatic weapons as the Arrow, and their host calls him on the fact that he has blood on his face. Felicity Smoak unconvincingly tries to pass it off as this trope.
* In ''Series/AsTimeGoesBy'', Lol Ferris--the amiable gardener at the country house--insists that he fell over to explain his bruised face. Jean, a former nurse, notes that he should have bruised hands if that were the case. In truth, the obnoxious, posh, townie weekenders incited their younger fellows to beat him up after he shouted at them for driving their [=ATVs=] through his garden. Jean and Lionel threaten to buy some dogs specifically to set on them.
* In an episode of the new ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'', Baltar uses this "excuse" to explain the rather grisly injury he gets when [[spoiler: he is attacked in a bathroom and gets his throat cut. With the razor he was using to shave his BeardOfSorrow]].
* Part of a deception that wasn't recognized as such: [[Series/BeingHumanUS both versions of]] ''Series/{{Being Human|UK}}'''s [[spoiler: resident ghost. She believes she actually fell down the stairs in an accident which results in her death, and the reveal sends her into BSOD-mode]].
* One VerySpecialEpisode of ''Series/BeverlyHills90210'' had a girl who worked on a fashion show with Kelly. She was, like Ellie in the Degrassi example, a cutter. She blamed it on a new kitten.
* In the ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' episode "Dish and Dishonesty", he fixes the result of an election by taking the place of the only eligible voter (who "accidentally brutally cut his head off while combing his hair"), and also replacing the returning officer, who "accidentally brutally stabbed himself in the stomach while shaving."
* In ''Series/TheBorgias'', Cesare has just murdered [[spoiler: his former brother-in-law, Giovanni Sforza]] by stabbing him through the hand, through the neck and then about ten more times in the torso, and Rodrigo tries to explain that [[spoiler: Giovanni]] had an "accident" where "He fell...on a knife...which... Cesare happened to be holding". His voice trails off as he realises just how completely ridiculous this sounds.
* ''Series/TheBradyBunch'': With Greg in Season 5's "Out of This World", who had a bandage on his chin and Alice makes it a point to ask him to explain. In Barry Williams' autobiography ''Growing Up Brady'', he explains that he had been involved in a car accident around the time this episode was filmed in November 1973 – the driver of another car was talking to her dog(!) – and that Sherwood Schwartz suggested the "cut himself shaving" explanation.
* In ''Series/BreakingBad'', after Combo asks about the hole in the ceiling, Jesse uses the fallen ceiling (from decomposing Emilio in his bathtub with acid) as an excuse for his bruises which he got from Krazy-8.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. On seeing two familiar puncture wounds on a corpse's neck in "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS7E4Help Help]]".
-->'''Xander:''' Maybe she cut herself shaving and then died naturally of embarrassment.
** Or maybe, tripped and fell on a barbecue fork?
* An episode of ''Series/BurnNotice'' used this after a thief falls trying to scale a wall:
-->'''Gilroy:''' Unfortunately, our dear Claude didn't survive his injuries.\\
'''Michael:''' He broke his ankle.\\
'''Gilroy:''' There were... [[YouHaveFailedMe complications]].
* ''Series/{{Cannon}}'': In "Scream of Silence", a doctor remarks on the deep wound on a thug's chest. The thug's boss replies "He cut himself shaving" as he hands over enough cash to buy the doctor's silence.
* ''Series/{{Castle}}'':
** A particularly impressive example (played for laughs) appears when a knifeman for a local drug cartel blithely insists to Castle and Beckett that his severe injuries -- otherwise consistent with a very bad beating -- were sustained during a fall. And that his horrifically swollen and near-useless black eye was injured when it connected with a door during the fall. And his mangled hand is the result of him putting his hand out to stop his fall, only for it to get caught in a grate. What makes this a particularly impressive example, however, is that Castle and Beckett actually ''walked in on him'' being very badly beaten by a rather pissed off rival member of the local Irish mob.
--->'''Castle''': Well. [[SarcasmMode Thanks for keeping it real.]]
** In another episode, Castle and Beckett are abducted by government members and questioned about data the government believes them to possess. They are injected in the neck and returned to their car. (It is set up to appear like alien abduction, as this is what their current case looks like.)
--->'''Esposito''': Abducted by government agents, huh? Come on, what were you two really doing?\\
'''Beckett''': It's not a hickey, Esposito.\\
Later... '''Ryan''': Hey. Those hickeys?\\
'''Esposito''': Yes.\\
'''Beckett''': No.\\
'''Castle''': I wish.\\
'''Ryan''': Okay.
* Averted on ''Series/{{Chuck}}'' with the bruises, cuts, scratches and scrapes the team--Sarah in particular--receive in the course of their spy work. Not because they're honest with people about where they come from, but because the injuries are ''never even discussed''. Especially glaring in "Chuck Versus the Best Friend" when Sarah's face is covered with butterfly bandages for injuries she took during a particularly brutal fist-fight against the episode's BigBad. While ''standing in the middle of the Buy More''.
* Deconstructed in ''Series/TheCloser''. Raydor suspects one of her officers is being abused by her husband, and the officer offers up these sorts of excuses. Turns out her shitty excuses [[spoiler: tip-off Raydor and Brenda that the woman's faking the abuse. Raydor notes that most actual victims of abuse are actually, sadly, quite good at hiding it]].
* An unusual semi-real-life example on ''Series/TheColbertReport'': on the first anniversary of falling and breaking his wrist, Creator/StephenColbert showed up for work with two black eyes and stitches in his face. He explained that after [[ContinuityNod last year's incident]], he'd sworn never to break a fall with his ''hands'' again. The explanation was a joke, but the injuries are real; [[WrittenInInfirmity as he had been in a sailing accident]].
* ''Series/CriminalMinds'': One episode has the team investigating a missing woman, with her abusive ex-boyfriend as a major suspect. When they talk to the woman's father, he says that the woman told him her injuries had been the result of getting hit by a car while on her bike. Though his tone implies he at least suspected she'd been lying and was just in denial about it.
* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'':
** Played straight by a serial killer's psychiatrist in "Manhattan Manhunt." When Mac sees a wide scrape on the doctor's cheek, the man first says he cut himself shaving but finally admits that the killer had just done it before leaving his office via the back door - sending Mac and Don flying out after the guy.
** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in "Turbulence" when Mac finds blood on a suspect's cuff:
--> "Is this the point where I say I cut myself shaving?"
*** [[spoiler: Subverted later when it turns out he actually did, or something to that effect; the blood is his]].
** Played straight again in a later episode. Sheldon is beat up by thugs hired by someone he knew who wanted him to destroy evidence against the guy's father. He tells Mac he ran into a wall.
* In the ''Series/{{Decoy}}'' episode "Queen of Diamonds," a woman who was worked over tells the police she was hit by a car.
* ''Series/TheDefenders2017'':
** ''Series/Daredevil2015'': Matt Murdock invents these sorts of cover stories to explain any visible injuries that show up on his face as a result of his fights as Daredevil.
*** In "Rabbit in a Snowstorm," he shows up at the office sporting a bruise over his right eye from his fight with the Russians the night before and claims to Foggy and Karen that he wasn't looking and walked into a wall. Foggy and Karen suggest he get a seeing-eye dog.
*** In "The Path of the Righteous", Matt is laid up in his apartment, still recovering from being sliced open by Nobu and then beaten up by Wilson Fisk. Although Foggy is mad at finding that Matt has been lying to him for years about his secret life, [[ThickerThanWater he still covers for him]] by claiming to Karen that Matt got into a car accident. When she visits him, he says that he was hit by a Japanese...car, allowing him to tell her a half-truth about what really happened (Nobu is Japanese). And even though Matt's lying about the cause of his injuries, Karen still correctly suspects that Fisk had attacked him.
*** By "Bang," the first episode in season 2, Foggy is claiming to Karen that Matt has a drinking problem to explain his constant Daredevil injuries, and he's not too happy with this.
---->'''Foggy Nelson:''' You know, Karen's been asking questions. The cuts, the scrapes, the bruises.\\
'''Matt Murdock:''' What do you tell her?\\
'''Foggy Nelson:''' You have a drinking problem.\\
'''Matt Murdock:''' That's horrible.\\
'''Foggy Nelson:''' Well, it's more plausible than "you put on a devil suit and beat the shit out of strangers!"
*** In the next episode, "Dogs to a Gunfight", while Matt is recuperating from getting shot by the Punisher, Karen drops by to fill him in on the plea deal for Grotto and makes clear that she doesn't really buy Foggy's cover stories:
---->'''Karen Page:''' Sometimes I worry about you a little too much.\\
'''Matt Murdock:''' I appreciate it. There's no need to worry.\\
'''Karen Page:''' Yeah, you know that doesn't help, right? You denying that there's anything wrong?\\
'''Matt Murdock:''' Karen—\\
'''Karen Page:''' No, how many times can I hear that you "fell down the stairs" or you "walked into a door"?\\
'''Matt Murdock:''' Well, you know I'm blind—\\
'''Karen Page:''' And you know that I'm not an idiot. ''[beat]'' Okay, um, let's say this: when or if you ever feel like you can tell me what's going on with you, I promise that I'm here. Is that a deal?\\
'''Matt Murdock:''' That is a deal.
** ''Series/LukeCage2016'': In "[[Recap/LukeCage2016S1E2CodeOfTheStreets Code of the Streets]]," Cottonmouth visits Pop's Barbershop with Shades and Tone to get a haircut, as a cover story while they search the place for Chico. Pop notices [[InvulnerableKnuckles cuts on Cottonmouth's knuckles]] from when he killed Shameek. Cottonmouth laughs and says "[[LampshadeHanging shaving]]" (while being shaved by Pop, no less). Pop, himself a former street brawler and who ran with Cottonmouth back in the day, isn't fooled for a second and tells Luke such after Cottonmouth leaves.
** ''Series/IronFist2017'': In "[[Recap/IronFist2017S1E7FellingTreeWithRoots Felling Tree with Roots]]," after Harold Meachum kills two enforcers Madame Gao sent to his penthouse to [[{{Fingore}} collect a finger or two as punishment]], he cuts off his left pinkie finger to make sure it seems like the enforcers did their job then disappeared. While Harold is using a clawhammer to mutilate the bodies (destroying their teeth so the police can't identify them), Ward shows up, having been summoned by Harold to dump the bodies.
--->'''Harold Meachum:''' ''[cheerfully]'' Oh, Ward! It's about time! ''[Ward quickly grabs the nearest wastepaper basket so he can retch, only to freeze up when he sees Harold's severed finger at the bottom, leaving him reduced to dry-heaving]'' [[ComicallyMissingThePoint You okay, son? You look a little green.]] Hey, what happened to your hands?\\
'''Ward Meachum:''' What happened to yours?\\
'''Harold Meachum:''' Oh, uh, kitchen accident.
* In ''Series/{{Degrassi}}'', when Paige walks in while Ellie is [[SelfHarm cutting herself]] in the school bathroom, Ellie says she "hit her arm, on the... thing." Given how weak her excuse is, it doesn't work.
* An episode of ''Series/DegrassiJuniorHigh'' subverts this: Joey's injured (from his bike) and keeps talking about child abuse (because he catches Rick being abused), so naturally the Children's Aid people assume his parents beat him.
* ''Series/{{Dexter}}'':
** On an episode called "Waiting To Exhale," a gangster named "Little Chino" (see former pic) walks into the police station with a scar [[spoiler: from when Dexter tried to murder him the previous night and failed]]. When questioned about it, he paraphrased this tropes title.
** In a season three episode, Dexter explains away a broken hand that he got [[spoiler: while escaping from the Skinner]] by saying that he fell down some stairs.
* An episode of ''Series/DickAndDomInDaBungalow'' featured Geordie copper Harry Batt in his usual weekly appearance being wheeled in on a wheelchair, covered in bandages and casts and neck brace. His answer? He cut himself shaving.
* An episode of ''Series/TheDickVanDykeShow'' had the main character toss a book to his wife, Laura, giving her a shiner. The humor of the episode is derived from everyone believing the main character "slugged" his wife rather than believing the more mundane explanation. The episode ends with Laura tossing a book to Rob (Dick Van Dyke) and giving 'him' a black eye. He is mocked relentlessly.
* In a VerySpecialEpisode of ''Series/ADifferentWorld'', Gina's popular boyfriend repeatedly beats her up; she makes excuses like "I got into a fight with this girl" and "I bumped into my desk." When she contradicts herself with one of her excuses, her friends start to get suspicious. Once the news gets out all over school, someone calls the cops when they see him dragging her outside for a "private talk". At the end of the episode, Gina says she's going to file a complaint and he is arrested.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E11BoomTown "Boom Town"]], Cathy Salt questions Margaret Blaine about the number of accidents that have befallen anyone who's tried investigating or speaking out against the [[ArcWords Blydd Drwg]] nuclear power plant project:
-->'''Cathy Salt:''' But are you aware of the curse?
-->'''Margaret Blaine:''' (looking her up and down with a fixed, fake smile) Whatever do you mean? Cathy, wasn't it?
-->'''Cathy Salt:''' Cathy Salt. That's what some of your engineers are saying. That the Blaidd Drwg Project is cursed.
-->'''Margaret Blaine:''' Sounds rather silly to me.
-->'''Cathy Salt:''' That's what I thought. I was just chasing a bit of local colour. But the funny thing is, when you start piecing it all together, it does begin to look a bit odd...
-->'''Margaret Blaine:''' (coldly) In what way?
-->'''Cathy Salt:''' The deaths! The number of deaths associated with this project. First of all, there was the entire team of the European Safety Inspectors.
-->'''Margaret Blaine:''' But they were French! It's not my fault if [[CantYouReadTheSign "DANGER! EXPLOSIVES!"]] was only written in Welsh.
-->'''Cathy Salt:''' And then there was that accident with the Cardiff Heritage Committee.
-->'''Margaret Blaine:''' [[ElectrifiedBathTub The electrocution of that swimming pool was put down to natural wear and tear.]]
-->'''Cathy Salt:''' And then the architect?
-->'''Margaret Blaine:''' ''[softly]'' It was raining, visibility was low. My car simply couldn't stop.
-->'''Cathy Salt:''' And then just recently [[OffWithHisHead Mr. Cleaver]], the government's nuclear advisor?\\
'''Margaret Blaine:''' Slipped on an icy patch.\\
'''Cathy Salt:''' He was decapitated!\\
'''Margaret Blaine:''' It was a ''very'' icy patch.
* In the ''Series/{{Dragnet}}'' episode "The Little Victim," the titular infant is beaten by his father. His mother claims he escaped from the apartment and fell downstairs. No one at the hospital is convinced, especially after they see the X-rays showing his bones have been broken before.
* An episode of ''Series/DrQuinnMedicineWoman'' had newcomer Dorothy being examined by Mike, who noticed her many bruises and didn't buy her excuses for any of them. Sure enough, Dorothy eventually admits to being beaten by her husband. A sympathetic Mike reveals that even working with her father in a posh Boston neighborhood, she frequently saw women who had "fallen down the stairs".
* On an episode of ''Series/{{ER}}'', a policeman's wife comes in badly hurt by her husband. Some of his coworkers are witnesses, but won't speak against him because of cop code. Benton shows the abuser's lieutenant her medical records, showing that he's been beating her up for years. While the other cops still don't give him up, they do beat the shit out of him with the cover story that he fell while chasing a suspect.
* LampshadeHanging: In the ''Series/FoylesWar'' episode "Bleak Midwinter", the detective's offsider is framed for a murder. When he's informed that a search of his house turned up a shirt with blood spattered on the cuff, his response is: "[[ThisIsThePartWhere Is this the bit where]] I'm supposed to say I cut myself shaving?"
* In an episode of ''Series/{{Friends}}'', Monica, Chandler, and Ross manage to get backstage at a Hootie and the Blowfish concert, without Joey, Phoebe, and Rachel knowing, during which Monica receives a hickey on her neck from one of the members. When Rachel asks Monica about, she laughs it off nervously with: "Oh... I fell." Rachel cynically asks: "On someone's lips?"
* ''Series/{{Fringe}}'': During one WholeEpisodeFlashback we see a young Olivia Dunham show up at daycare with a black eye from her [[AbusiveParents stepfather]] hitting her for disobeying him. When asked she claims she got it from running in the house. Walter Bishop, who's running the daycare, clearly doesn't believe it for a second. At the end of the episode Walter confronts the stepfather and makes it clear that if she shows up with any more "accidental" brusies Walter ''will'' call Social Services and ask some of his high-placed government contacts to make the man pay.
* ''Series/FullHouse'', episode "Silent is Not Golden" has the abused child version.
-->"I ran into a door. [[Narm/LiveActionTV A door named Dad.]]"
* Used as a plot point for an episode of ''Series/GilmoreGirls''. Jess shows up at Friday night dinner with a black eye and won't tell anyone what happened, leading Rory to assume he got in a fight with Dean. Later, when Rory apologizes for the accusation and again asks about the black eye Jess claims he was playing catch with a friend and got hit in the face. Actually, [[spoiler: he was attacked by a swan on the way to Richard and Emily's and is embarrassed about it.]]
* {{Invoked|Trope}} in ''Series/TheGoodWife'' episode "The Line". After Cary is arrested, Lemond Bishop tries to have one of his guys on the inside cut one of Cary's fingers off to remind him to keep his mouth shut. However, Cary had just helped the would-be finger-cutter with his own case, and so talks his boss down to giving Cary a gash on the palm of his hand. He tells Cary to say he tripped and fell against the bars, and Cary maintains that story to Alicia and Diane, though they don't believe him.
* ''Series/{{Glee}}'': Bieste gets a black eye from a swinging heavy bag...or so she says.
* When Jack Crawford checks in on Mason Verger on ''Series/{{Hannibal}}'', Verger assures him that his injuries are only due to slipping and falling while feeding his pigs. This is after [[spoiler: the title character has drugged him and convinced him to cut off his own face ''and eat it'']].
* In the first ''Series/HoratioHornblower'' TV movie, Hornblower is held down and beaten by another midshipman on his ship (a habitual bully and abuser of the other midshipmen). One of the officers sees his injuries, and he claims that he missed his footing and fell down a causeway (he fell down the stairs). When he continues to deny that anybody else was involved, the officer orders him to [[CoolAndUnusualPunishment stay up in the rigging]] (exposed to the rather nasty English Channel weather) so that he might "learn to watch his footing".
* ''Series/{{House}}'':
** A gangster's head injury is explained by "A tire iron fell on him".
** "He was changing a tire, and it... slipped."
** Played with - In the cold open of a Season 6 episode, a couple is arguing, and it disturbs their neighbour. When the man answers the door, the Woman (Patient of the Week)'s face comes out all bruised. Neighbour assumes the obvious, but it's just a symptom.
** Another episode has the Patient claiming that the abrasions on his knees are from playing flag football. They are in fact, rug burns, from the carpet of the motel where he was shagging his mistress.
* Subverted on ''Series/HouseOfPayne'' Malik's classmate Ricky shows up to the Paynes' house with a hickey on his neck claiming that a girl had given him the hickey, it's discovered that the "hickey" was [[spoiler: actually from a vacuum cleaner.]]
* In a rarely-aired episode of ''Series/ILoveLucy'', Lucy gets a black eye accidentally. She jokingly tells Fred and Ethel "Ricky slugged me!" But they believe her, and not her later counter-protestations. This episode had some of the creeeepiest dialogue in the history of the show. "Well, Fred, nobody's going to believe this story. You're probably the only person in history who *actually* got a black eye from walking into a door." Oh, the Fifties — you so crazy!
* Subverted in ''Series/{{Justified}}''. Art and Raylan are both law enforcement officers. Art is Raylan's boss. Raylan admits to being an accomplice in an orchestrated mob hit that has already been "solved" by the FBI. Blowing the whistle on Raylan involvement would mean possibly overturning the cases and sentences of every person Raylan has put behind bars, many of whom were on the U.S. Marshals/ FBI's most wanted lists. Still justifiably angry, Art punches Raylan in the face. The next day, Raylan walks into work with obvious bruises to which fellow Marshal Tim Gutterson remarks "Did you fall in Art's shower, too?" alluding to how Art had explained his own bruised knuckles.
* Subverted in the Danish series ''Series/LangtFraLasVegas''. Casper thinks his father-in-law is abusing his wife, but at the [[BrickJoke end of the episode]], he finds the stone she said she had tripped over.
* ''Series/LarkRiseToCandleford'' uses the euphemism "chopping firewood" when Susan Braby is involved in a domestic quarrel with her husband Sam. The trope is subverted though — Susan makes no such excuses for the black eye she has and insists on calling the constable to deal with her assailant. The expression is specific to the time and place, and Flora Thompson's original book explains the origin, which is not elucidated in the TV episode.
* Happens quite frequently on ''Series/LawAndOrder'' (such as in the episode "Family Friend") and its spinoffs. ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'', with its habit of ItsPersonal episodes, has been known to explain away perpetrators' injuries in police custody this way, too. From the episode "Futility":
-->'''Defense Lawyer:''' And how did he get hurt between his home and the station house?\\
'''Alex Cabot:''' I don't know, how did he? ''[looks at Tutuola and Stabler]''\\
'''Odafin Tutuola:''' He fell.\\
'''Defense Lawyer:''' Bull.\\
'''Alex Cabot:''' The only injuries I see are Mr. Gardner's torn knuckles from punching Detective Benson in the face, so unless you want to add the assault of a police officer to the list of charges, I suggest you move on.
* The ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' episode "The Order 23 Job" has an abused kid whose parents repeatedly check him into the hospital with this kind of excuse. Fortunately for the kid, Eliot takes offense.
* On ''Series/{{Lost}}'', Ana Lucia sarcastically says she cut herself shaving when asked about the cut ''on her forehead'' that "Henry" gave her when he tried to kill her.
* ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle'' had an interesting case; Reese had a black eye after Malcolm punched him. Being the tough guy he is, when asked by a lady in the store he made up a bad excuse about how he raised his leg during his sleep, hitting his arm and punching himself. However, after seeing the boy's mother, the lady assumes that she's abusing him.
* Al Bundy uses the shaving excuse twice on ''Series/MarriedWithChildren''. The first time was to explain why he had a bandage on his forehead at his and Peg's high school reunion (he used his head to hammer in a nail). The second was after getting in a fight with some punks in his old girlfriend's neighborhood, and returning bruised and battered.
* ''Series/{{MASH}}'':
** B.J. Hunnicutt uses the exact phrase in the episode "The Abduction of Margaret Houlihan", to explain away a suspicious leg wound. However, he says this to annoy [[CrazyPrepared Col.]] [[CrazySurvivalist Flagg]] and does not particularly care if he is believed or not. (Actually, he'd been accidentally shot in the leg by Frank Burns.)
** In the episode "House Arrest", Hawkeye punches Frank and gives him a black eye, but when Frank tries to get corroboration for a court-martial, Trapper John insists he really "slipped on a bar of soap".
* An episode of ''Series/TheMiddle'' found Frankie and the family quickly gathering up garbage for the once every two week garbage pick up. Frankie tossed an empty bottle to Sue which accidentally hit Brick in the head. Later at school when asked about the injury, Brick innocently said "My Mom hit me with a beer bottle", not intending it to sound the way it did.
* ''Series/TheMiddleman'' attempts to use this excuse on Lacey. Since [[spoiler: he was ''bitten by a vampire puppet'',]] it doesn't go over too well.
* ''Series/MidnightCaller'': When Jack has a black eye from being punched in the face by someone he was trying to help, he tells Zymak a book fell on him after he dozed off.
* PlayedForLaughs in "The Sword of Guillaume" episode of ''Series/MidsomerMurders'' when these very words were offered as an "explanation" of the victim's decapitation. Midsomer humor, y'know.
* ''Series/{{Monk}}'': In "Mr. Monk and the Red-Headed Stranger," Stottlemeyer breaks his right arm in an accident (forcing Randy to be lead on the crime scene investigation in the death of Willie Nelson's road manager). When he finally makes it to the police station, he claims that he broke his arm in a motorcycle accident after slipping on wet leaves. Monk takes Stottlemeyer aside and tells him that the area he claims he had his accident in has been closed for weeks due to brushfires. Stottlemeyer uneasily admits that in reality, he fell off a ladder while cleaning his gutters.
* ''Series/NewTricks'': In "The Curate's Egg'', Steve asks Dan how he got his black eye. Dan claims, somewhat unconvincingly, that he walked into a door to cover up the fact that his girlfriend's mother hit him with a ladle after he got in a fight with her father (ItMakesSenseInContext).
* British sitcom ''Series/OnlyFoolsAndHorses'' episode "No Greater Love" has this:
-->'''Del Boy:''' I fell into a door.\\
'''Rodney:''' A door done all that damage?\\
'''Del Boy:''' Well it was one of those revolving doors.
* On an episode of ''Series/OrangeIsTheNewBlack'' Alex walks into CO Healy's office with a hickey on her neck which she explains away as a mosquito bite until Healy figures out [[spoiler:Piper gave Alex the hickey]].
-->'''CO Healy:''' [[DeadpanSnarker Hello, mosquito.]]
* An episode of ''Series/{{Reba}}'' has Brock showing up with a suspicious injury around his right ear, which he claimed to be a shaving wound when his wife's dog is missing. He's soon forced to confess that the injury occurred because the dog bit him while he tried to befriend the dog, but insists he never hurt the dog and is soon cleared of the accusation.
* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'':
** One episode features a throwaway scene where J.D. observes two parents checking their (very badly bruised) daughter into Sacred Heart. Explaining, the father says in a disconcertingly offhand fashion: "She fell again."
** In another episode, there's a scene where several [[strike: men]] people come into the hospital with bizarre things stuck up their asses, and (nearly) all of them say "I fell on it." ([[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers The last guy said: "I was bored."]] At least ''one'' of them was honest.)
* ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' did this in reverse. In "[[Recap/SherlockS02E01AScandalInBelgravia A Scandal in Belgravia]]", Sherlock finds his landlady beaten up and overpowers the person responsible. He calls the police and requests an ambulance, rattling off all the injuries the man suffered before ending with "He fell out of a window". Then he throws him out of a window. GilliganCut to Sherlock and Lestrade standing on the sidewalk as an ambulance drives away.
-->'''Lestrade:''' Exactly how many times ''did'' he fall out of the window?\\
'''Sherlock:''' It's all a bit of a blur, Detective Inspector. I lost count.
* ''Series/TheSopranos'':
** Throughout the series, it's something of a RunningGag for the mobsters to blame any instance of business-related violence on "[[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain two black guys]]".
** In the episode "[[Recap/TheSopranosS4E10TheStrongSilentType The Strong Silent Type]]", after Chris' "intervention" for his drug addiction (where he gets the crap beaten out of him) he is taken to the ER. Tony explains to the nurse that he sustained his injuries "slipping off the kitchen counter while spraying for ants". Off her skeptical look, Tony elaborates, "Well, he was wearing socks".
* The ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "City on the Edge of Forever" has a non-injury variation, with Kirk trying to explain away Spock's pointed ears as the result of a mechanical rice-picker accident followed by restorative plastic surgery.
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': In the episode "[[{{Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS7E13Prophecy}} Prophecy]]", Harry Kim walks into sickbay with a bleeding cheek. When he claims this trope, The Doctor (no, not [[Series/DoctorWho that one]]) identifies the wound as a bite mark, whereupon Harry admits that a Klingon woman bit him as part of a mating ritual.
* An episode of ''Series/StrongMedicine'' had one of the doctor's talking to a colleague's wife when she noticed several large bruises. The woman offers a hasty, vague explanation of having bumped into the coffee table, which the doctor clearly does not believe. Several days later, the woman is rushed to the hospital after having "fallen down the stairs". The doctor angrily confronts her colleague, who continues to protest his innocence. She still does not believe him until tests reveal that the woman is suffering from multiple sclerosis and that the explanations for her injuries were ''true'', as well as a symptom of her illness. Her demeanor was not fear of her husband, but fear of finding out what was wrong.
* ''Series/{{Vera}}'': In "On Harbour Street", Vera asks a prostitute how she got her black eye. She replies that she "banged her head".
* ''Series/{{Victorious}}'': When Cat catches Tori kissing her boyfriend, she punches her in the face, albeit at Tori's request. When they go to the hospital, they tell the nurse that Tori got hurt by falling down.
* ''Series/TheWestWing'': Josh's hand (supposedly) cut up by a broken drink glass in the episode "Noel", when in fact he [[spoiler: smashed his hand through a window during a particularly intense reaction to his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder]].
** Also PlayedForLaughs by [[DeadpanSnarker Toby]] in reference to Sam's first-episode flap about his ''[[InsistentTerminology accidentally]]'' sleeping with a call girl: "I don't understand. Did you trip over something?"
* The ''Series/WhatsHappening'' episode "One Strike and You're Out". A strike at his workplace begins the day the main character Raj goes home to find out his mother is unable to work due to ill health and was actually counting on his income. He goes to work to break the strike and comes home with his shirt torn and staggering. When asked what happened he says "I fell down" to which his younger sister asks "Where, down an elevator shaft?". He then admits he was beaten up and lies about who did it because he was embarrassed that it was the elderly mother of his boss. She hit him on the back of the head with her protest sign when Raj started yelling at her son and then beat him up while he was down.
* Subverted in the pilot episode of ''Series/ZCars''. A policeman's wife is making some excuse about her black eye to her husband's partner, who is unconvinced and rather annoyed. (This was TheSixties, so all he does is grumble instead of sic [[InternalAffairs Professional Standards]] on him.) Turns out she ''was'' beaten up, but not by her husband; they live on one of the less salubrious UsefulNotes/{{Council Estate}}s in the area and the neighbours aren't fond of policemen, or policemen's wives.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

!!Examples:

* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d on ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' when Mac finds blood on a suspect's cuff:

** [[spoiler: Subverted later when it turns out he actually did, or something to that effect; the blood is his]].
** Played straight in a later episode. Sheldon is beat up by thugs hired by someone he knew who wanted him to destroy evidence against the guy's father. He tells Mac he ran into a wall.

** This was taken to extremes in the '90s comic book arc ''ComicBook/{{Knightfall}}''. In it, then new villain Bane deduces Batman's identity, breaks into the Batcave, battles Batman and ''breaks his back''. In order to explain why Gotham's wealthiest playboy is now paralyzed, they claim that Bruce Wayne was in a car accident, complete with the [[TrueCompanions Batclan]] going out and totaling one of Bruce Wayne's vehicles. Now ''that's'' dedication.

** There is also the scene from ''ComicBook/TheLongHalloween'' where (while Batman) Bruce gets a scratch on his face from Comicbook/{{Catwoman}}. When they meet up later for a date (as Bruce and Selina) and Selina asks how he got the scratch, he tells her exactly this.

* ''Film/SpiderMan1'': The Green Goblin sets a building on fire as bait for Spider-Man, then ambushes him for a fight after Spider-Man rescues all the trapped victims. In the resulting fight, the Goblin lobs several shurikens at Spider-Man, one of which cuts his left arm. Then at [[VillainOverForDinner Thanksgiving dinner]], Aunt May and ComicBook/NormanOsborn notice Peter bleeding from the cut. Peter claims to Harry, Aunt May and Mary Jane that he was knocked down by a bike messenger, but Norman recognizes it as the one he gave Spider-Man in the burning building.

* An {{inver|tedTrope}}sion in the interrogation in ''Film/{{Scarface|1983}}'', notable for its [[{{bowdlerize}} Bowdlerised]] rewording (from the infamous "melon farmer" version):

* In the ''Series/{{Dragnet}}'' episode "The Little Victim," the titular infant is beaten by his father. His mother claims he escaped from the apartment and fell downstairs. No one at the hospital is convinced, especially after they see the X-rays showing his bones have been broken before.

-->'''Bill:''' That's an interesting story. You know what? I was walking... I was walking. And I walked into a door.\\

--->'''Kreiger:''' ''[explaining his black eye]'' I...walked into a door? Repeatedly?\\

* An unfortunate rendering of Zechariah 13:6 from Literature/TheBible in The Message translation makes the verse come off as this. (Contextually, it's talking about someone being chastised for proclaiming to be a prophet when he really isn't.)

** When Homer hires the Mafia to help Marge's pretzel business, she delivers some to Skinner who answers his door with a bandaged wrist. She asks what happens and a hidden goon behind him whispers "*mumble mumble* boating accident". Skinner repeats robotically "I believe it was a boaking accident."[[note]] This isn't a typo, Skinner blurts out ''boaking''[[/note]]

* In ''Series/TheSopranos'' episode "[[Recap/TheSopranosS4E10TheStrongSilentType The Strong Silent Type]]", after Chris' "intervention" for his drug addiction (where he gets the crap beaten out of him) he is taken to the ER. Tony explains to the nurse that he sustained his injuries "slipping off the kitchen counter while spraying for ants". Off her skeptical look, Tony elaborates, "Well, he was wearing socks".