And So Last Night . . .

. . . was the last final for the quarter. Two more quarters to go.

There's something inherent in me that just stops giving a fuck in the home stretch. As soon as I see the finish line, I start walking. I remember several Halloweens back, I spent a month getting in shape for my role as a young, bare-chested Abe Lincoln. I walked around shirtless the entire night and picked fights with anyone that so much as looked at me. Yet, in the days before Halloween, my will caved in on itself, and I gorged myself on double cheeseburgers.

A girl I liked was coming to visit me. I spent two months mimicking the Rocky IV workout regimen, only to sit in a White Castle parking lot en route to pick her up at the airport. The cases of twenty sliders were scattered around me, as empty as my effort.

Maybe I'm just a quitter. Maybe I realize the absurdity of what it is I'm trying to do and can't feign the interest any longer.

As I sat in absolute silence, my classmates were huddled together in groups. They had mock questions, the answers of which spilled across eight pages. I could read their lips. Credit Default Swaps. Minsky market fragility. The Lorenz Curve. I couldn't hear them. My headphones were in, and my attention was focused on the wall ahead of me. As Glen Campbell sang Wichita Lineman on repeat, I spent 45-minutes thinking about how Real Genius is the best PG-rated comedy of all-time.

And it is. I challenge you to come up with something better.