Inexcusable Audacity

It has been a while, dear friends and followers. Another year is rocketing by like a runaway train. Doesn't any conductor anywhere know how to engage the brakes?
 
This year, my brain has been clogged with nonsensical horse manure, making it impossible to find anything valuable to share with devoted readers.
 
I muddle through days thinking… maybe soon? I have just been a hotbed of inadequacy.
 
In a world laden with injustices, I found myself pivoting through memories in search of prime - although truly inconsequential - examples of personal battles. And there it was.
 
I was a junior in college. Placement exams and SAT scores exempted me from required freshman-level English courses as I chased degrees in Vocal Presentation (Voice/Music) and Journalism.
 
A career on Broadway was the ultimate dream, but my street smarts made it elusive at best. So, with a love of writing, I chose Journalism as the next best path.
 
When I transferred to another State University, they would not accept the exempted credits and forced me to enroll in English Composition 101 to continue my major. I was so blessed (ahem) to be placed in an English class led by an educational dimwit driven by a preposterous hunger for power.
 
With a dozen writing assignments under my belt, I had achieved eleven A grades and one B. The final exam was only required if you teetered on a ledge between grades. I was informed to ensure an A for the class, I had to take the final.
 
Huh? I only had one B all semester. How could I be teetering? When I asked, my professor told me he did not believe I was doing my own work because it was not of “freshman caliber.” My lament that I was not a freshman fell on deaf ears.
 
When I arrived for the exam – at 2:00 PM on the last Friday of the semester – I was the only student in attendance. No one else was required to test. Somehow, I managed to maintain a sense of calm and pounded out the four short essays needed to secure my grade.
 
When I handed my exam to this blithering idiot, he took the paper, thanked me, and stood up as if to leave. Shocked in awe, I blundered defiantly, “Oh no, you don’t. You made me drive 40 minutes on a wintery Friday afternoon to take an exam to secure a grade I had already earned. You are not leaving until it is read and graded. So, sit.”
 
His expression was worth the price of entry. He sat down, read slowly and intently, marked the paper with an A, and handed it back to me without a word. With blind courage and probably inexcusable audacity, I quipped, “Don’t you want a copy of this for your trophy room?”
 
This memory-surfing exercise, I must admit, has been cleansing. We all have to realize that sometimes life in all its glory is often just a poltergeist of worthless exams administered just for the hell of it. Ah, but that is fodder for yet another rant.

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