Testes

My two triumphs in the world of academe as a high school letter-winning Lothario were

1. coming in 19th out of 60 on some math contest for which I walked into the wrong room
2. getting a higher SAT score than my smarty-pants girlfriend, who would go to UVa while I pretended to matriculate at the Harvard on the Appomattox.

None of these tests sound as miserable as the Oxford tests, via Sully:

When I took them, I had around ten 3-hour written exams in a week and a half. All of my grades at Oxford would depend on these exams alone. Nothing else over the previous three years mattered. And you had to show up in full "subfusc": gown, mortar board, black pants, black jacket and black socks. Yes, socks. I showed up for one exam wearing white socks and was sent home. I lost about 20 minutes on that exam, frantically running down Oxford high street on a mission to find some non-crusty black socks from the pile of filth in my closet, then hightailing it back there to get my early modern French lit exam under my belt.

Of course, my test-taking m.o. was, as with love-making, not to do well, but just fucking finish already:

I was always a fast test taker; I never hemmed and hawed for minutes over single questions, I either knew it or I didn’t and I’m moving on to the next question. I’d ALWAYS be the first to hand in a test or quiz, and every single time it’d go like this:

XMASTIME: Here, I’m done.
TEACHER: There’s no way you answered every question!
XMASTIME: I did.
TEACHER: Your brother never even would finish this fast!
XMASTIME: so?
TEACHER: Take it back to your desk; go over all the questions again.
XMASTIME: No.
TEACHER: If you don’t take it back I’m grading it! No second chances!
XMASTIME: (already back in seat, making paper footballs while macramé-ing XMAS LOVES LIBBY over and over)

Would drive the teacher bananas when I’d get an A.* She’d make a point of saying “Your brother would take his time and get an A+!” to which I’d jump up on my desk and scream “I don’t fucking have time; did you NOT fucking see WarGames?!?!?!?!?!”

Trivial Pursuit too. I know it or I don’t. I HAAAAAAAAAAATE motherfuckers who sit there for thirty minutes staring into space when you KNOW they don’t know the fucking answer. If I encounter bra I don’t know how to untangle, I instantly say “take this off” so I can get on to my heroics. I don’t fucking stare at it trying to remember the pressure point of certain metal alloys employed by Montgomery Ward’s lingerie department. Move On!!!

2012 Update: that feels like revisionist history.