We’ve all had those moments in life that you just wish never happened. I’m not just talking about embarrassing shit – not the stuff you’ll be able to laugh off in a week with friends. No unzipped flies. No slips on the stairs of Cabell. No, I’m talking about the stuff that will wake you in bed from a peaceful sleep and cause you to shiver. I’m talking about the time in middle school you threw up on the most popular girl in school and made her cry. I’m talking about the time you mistakenly thought it would be funny to freak-dance your grandmother at kitchen table. That’s the shit I’m talking about. (And coincidentally, I’ve done both. And it was not funny)
Well today I had one of those moments. Honestly, it pains me to relive it long enough to write this blog entry, but I thought it would be best to just get it out of the open.
So let me first set the scene for you. Today I had a final in this bullshit class I’m taking – Soc of Death and Dying. Now, surprisingly for a joke of a class, this final was pretty damn intense, and I knew that coming into it. I wasn’t going to worry about it though. I could give two shits about this class, so the game plan was to intentionally fail in flames of failing glory – just because I could. However, that UVA nerd from within kicked in last night, and I decided to pull an all-nighter to cram in a semesters’ worth of reading.
Sad to say, I’m not the young and spry kid I once was. This was the most difficult all-nighter that I’ve endured to date. It was a painful, painful struggle, but I made it – just barely though. I was a mental wreck by 8:30 when I left to take the exam. My hands were shaking from all the caffeine I had downed. My legs were trembling from the lack of sleep. I tried to speak to my roommate on the way out, but words didn’t come out - just a mixture of consonants and spittle.
I remembered on the bus ride over that I needed a bluebook, so on my way I ran into the bookstore to grab one. I got one and hauled ass to my exam – as hauled as this ass will go anyway. However, the detour ate up too much time, and I was late.
So I get to the class about five minutes late. In a sleep-crazed delirium, I rushed into the classroom. Now, this is where things get blurry. Don’t ask me to justify my actions, because I can’t. I honestly can’t. It was as if I left my body and some other socially retarded entity took control.
So here’s what went down.
The room is packed. The professor is standing at the front of the room doing the usual drill. “Write your TA’s name under section” he’s saying. People are scribbling away. I walk around, when I see on someone’s desk what looks to be an exam.
“Maybe they’ve already handed out the exam” I think to myself.
So I walk to the front of the room – the very front, and stop about ten feet away from the Professor. And there I stand. He’s still talking about names and dates etc., when he notices me standing there, staring at him.
While in mid-sentence, I interrupt him. “Have you passed out the exam?” I ask. He stops. Everything stops. People stop scribbling. No whispering. No rustling. It’s silent. They’re all looking at me. The TA’s are looking at me. The professor is looking at me – his mouth agape.
Moments pass in silence.
“What?!” he says. It wasn’t exactly a “what the fuck did you just say to me” kind of what, but it wasn’t a “pardon me sir, but I was unable to hear what you just said” what either.
“Did you…” – up until this point I was still in my daze, but this is about the moment when I realized what I was doing. It was too late though. It was too late to turn away. “…pass…out the…exam?”
People are laughing at me. The professor is still staring at me with disbelief. “…No” He finally responds.
I quickly turned away, horrified at what I had just done. I heard the professor make a sarcastic-filled nose snort (you know just what I’m talking about! I HATE THOSE), and more people laughed. I kept my head up though, trying not to wear my embarrassment on my face. Although, thinking about it now, that probably only made the situation worse. People probably thought to themselves “look at that tool! He’s an idiot and he doesn’t even know it.”
The worst part was there weren’t any seats, so I had to walk around with everyone still looking at me. I finally found a seat in the back next to some douchey looking frat boys. I quickly buried myself deep into the seat, and took off my sweater with the hopes that people wouldn’t recognize me without it.
They finally DID pass out the exam, and the TA handed me like 20, probably to add insult to injury. I took my exam, but all I could think about the entire time was about what an asshole I had made of myself. I looked to see if people were staring at me and saying to their friends “Look! There’s the asshole who asked if they had passed out exams already! What an asshole!” I tried to devise a plan that would allow me to turn in my exam without going back to the front of the room. "Perhaps I could make it into a paper airplane and see if could land it into the box" I thought to myself – doubtful considering I throw like a girl.
When I finished, having failed to devise a decent plan, I shuttled quickly to the front of the room and dropped off my bluebook. I left the room, never having to face those people again, thankfully. And yet, they’ll always be with me. They’re leering faces and snarky laughs will probably haunt me till the day I die.
Or at least the end of the week.
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