Maybe having that third cup of espresso before your big final exam wasn’t the best idea.
I know it seemed like the only option at the time—you’ve been up for two days studying, cramming in insignificant details and figures, and you’re desperately afraid of passing out before you even reach page three. You also took that one psychology course where they teach about state-dependant memory, and you’re afraid that not stuffing your body with caffeine for once will cause you to have soap opera-magnitude amnesia. This, of course, leads to failing your exam, dropping out of school, and being stuck attempting to “make it big” in the world of arts and crafts plastic bead arrangement (it’s hard). Still, your master plan has one tragic flaw: Expresso will make you pee in your pants.
You won’t notice it until you do reach page three, where they ask a question on some mundane situation the professor mentioned once back in August that, despite all your studying, you just don’t know. Insecurity will strike like Shirley Ann Jackson’s Audi traveling at high speed.
Amongst falling hopes for a perfect score you’ll realize that you really, really need to go to the bathroom.
It’s all downhill from there. With blown confidence and a head full of espresso you’ll consider calling over a TA and asking if you can step out for a minute. This plan will fail because you are socially awkward and don’t want the professor to think that you’re trying to sneak out to go cheat. (You need to stay on his good side; there’s a potential research position at stake here.) So you’ll try to repress it—only two more hours to go, right? Then comes the realization that you’re not focusing on the test at all, and that all the time spent holding it in is precious exam time wasted. Shortly after, you’ll remember about that problem you still have no clue how to solve, and turn the page over to notice for the first time that the entire exam is double-sided.
And then the unthinkable will happen.
Urine floods out like some kind of Mt. Vesuvius, taking with it all the hopes and dreams your parents ever had for their child. Your calculator will short-circuit, and all the ink will run off the exam. Nobody in the room will acknowledge what just happened, but you know that they know exactly what’s going on. All of their smirks are just out of sight, and it’s only a matter of time until the professor announces it on the overhead projector—just in case anyone missed it.
Just like that, the curtain will fall and your life will be over. Gone. After all, who would want to hire you after that? Everybody knows that “holding it in” is an essential cornerstone of professional conduct.
