I was banned from my school library for a while in my teens because I was so hopeless at returning books. Although I'm a bit better at it now (mainly because my local library sends a helpful email reminder the day they go past their due date) I am a big fan of the overdue book amnesty programme which the San Francisco public library ran recently, where borrowers could avoid paying fines if they came up with sufficiently interesting excuses.

From a group of second grade children who were too busy "researching sea creatures that they have rescued", to the old "abducted by aliens" chestnut, the desperate student who just didn't have time, and my personal favourite, a woman who simply couldn't bear to part with the "absolutely fabulous" India's Past - "Oh like an emerald pool on a hot day, I need this book on my too long shelf, dear librarians, not to read in a hurry, or even to have forever and ever, but to be able to pick up on a whim, having spotted it and feeling in the mood for its pages" - excuses have been many and various.

The amnesty seems to have worked: the library says it's seen almost 30,000 books returned – equivalent to $55,165 (£33,500) of waived fines – and well above the 5,000 returned books they received last time they let borrowers off payments in 2001. But I'm sure we could do better on the creativity front. Tell us about the excuses you've made – or if you're far too well-behaved ever to return a book late yourself, then maybe you could help out the residents of San Francisco (and me) with some useful tales.