Any use of a feeble, or implausible excuse used by someone to escape from a conversation on a mind-numbing, or uninteresting topic for the listener. Refers to someone explaining their preference to 'wash their hair', 'do their nails' or some other such excuse, which would be an otherwise less desirable chore than having to suffer through listening to such a boring conversation.

These excuses were popular in sit-coms, where the lead actor wanted to extract laughter from the audience with the punchline illustrating the implausibility of the excuse being believed by the recipient.