Friday, December 12, 2008

Murphy's Law Exam

Murphy's Law: If anything can go wrong, it will.

Today was my last exam of the semester, and I was glad that it was a 9:00 am test because I was ready to get it over with. Little did I know that everything that could go wrong this morning, did.

I was planning on catching the 7:40am bus so that I could set-up my stuff and review my notes one last time. Somehow I miscalculated the time and left the apartment at 7:40 instead of getting to the bus stop then. I missed the bus, but was was fine because another one would in less than 20 minutes, except . . .

There was a crazy woman sitting under the bus stop who lit a cigarette, started coughing up a lung, and hocked several loogies. (note: this would have been the perfect image for a no smoking ad) As I was slowly moving away to avoid the second-hand smoke in my face and the grossness of the coughing and spitting, a girl asked me about a bus line. Crazy woman thought we were talking about her so she started yelling at us about how we wouldn't catch her disases, how the mafia is going to come after us, and all of these other things for a good five minutes. Then she threw her burnt out cigarette in her direction. In my head all I could think about was: please just let me get to school to take my test.

The bus finally came and there seemed to be more traffic than usual. Then our bus made a strange turn and started going down a new road. Um, where are we going, please just let me get to school to take my test. Turns out that all of the traffic lights at the six-way intersection en route to school had died, hence the traffic, hence the rerouted bus. At this point, I wondered if it would have been better to take the metro but it turns out that there was a fire inside the next metro station, which delayed all the lines this morning. Basically a mass transit meltdown.

I finally got to school, and was relieved to get a seat in my lucky room. Despite some people having computer issues with the testing software, we started the exam without a problem. And then, 20 minutes into the test, the FIRE ALARM WENT OFF. Just let me take my test! We all sat there looking at each other. Do we stay or do we go. Between the flashing strobe lights, piercing alarm sounds, and intercom saying evacuate, we just decided to leave because none of us could focus anyway. Funnily, no one in the second testing room even budged. After we all grabbed our jackets and started heading out, security came in to tell us that it was a false alarm.

In the end, the test was fine, I am so glad to be done with exams, and now I have a story I can laugh at. Plus, it could have been worse; I could have been taking the bar exam and there could have been an earthquake.

No comments: