Gather ’round, gather ’round, kiddies… it’s time for another one of Uncle Sean’s drunk stories… this one is about what happened after a bachelor party… and it’s not quite what you think…

I’ve been to more than a few bachelor parties in my time.  Some have occurred on buses that took us to magical places (two of the best adventures, I must admit).  Most times, the magic visits upon us.  One time, and only one time, the bachelor wanted nothing to do with any of the magic, so his uncle enjoyed the sanctioned magic instead.  Another time, we sought out all kinds of magic in a city where magic never sleeps.  But I digress…

On the day of this story, the magic was visiting us.  I had planned on calling it an early night, since I had something to do, early the next morn.  Five beers tops, I promised myself.  But unlike the other shindigs I had been to, this one had kegs rather than cans or bottles (this was early in my bachelor party years), and my plastic cup never ran empty, courtesy of the handled couriers that were passed around.

When the magicians finally arrived (some extras appeared unannounced), the festivities flared.  Cash flashed (amongst other things), and soon the booze was tapped dry.   Due to the inundation of said magic and the awkward payment situations that followed, the party abruptly came to an end.  Phase One, anyway.  My initial hope to cut-and-run was quickly forgotten when Phase Two was announced.

In probably not the safest collected cavalcade, we embarked on a journey to the oldest part of town, where the Big Three Kings once ruled.  We visited an establishment that specialized in, um, magic, and as the night and my buzz winded down, I recalled my plans:  “I have the GRE tomorrow!”

I bid my farewells and ferried off left.  The next morning was to clarity as glass was to stone.

As I say in the lobby of the testing facility, I glanced at the other patrons.  I was the best dressed, I decided, mostly because they were all still in their pajamas, and I wore what I… slept… in.

We had to sign a form beforehand that required us to write a paragraph in cursive.  I failed to recall any of the letters, namely the capital-I which began the paragraph “I agree… blah, blah, blah.”  Looking around the room for any clue, my eyes stumbled upon the heroine of the show.

(I should note that in situations like these, I always daydream that the surrounding players and I are the cast of a TV show.  I’m the hero, of course, and I have to pick my supporting cast.  This daydream involved the rest of the world disappearing outside of the clinic’s walls, and us survivors picking up the pieces of… whatever.)

Somehow, my heroine sensed my selection of her as my co-star, and she looked up from writing.  I asked, “How do you make a cursive capital-I?”

When I was called into the interview room, the nebbish gentleman verifying my identity asked if I had any questions.  I did.  “Do you have any aspirin?”

Without irony or any further prompting, he leaned back and shifted his gaze upon me.  “Do you work for… them?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you work for… the company?”  (I swear this happened.  It wasn’t hangover induced or a daydream.)

“What are talking about?”

Finally, he relaxed and explained that the parent corporation that hosts the testing will send in dummy clients to test workers.  He told me they were not allowed to give out “medication.”  I reminded him it was only an aspirin that I wanted; he gave me the option of leaving to purchase some prior to hitting the questions.

“I’ll survive.”

The exam was equally grueling and a blur.  The first math section was Headache Incarnate, but it was the essay that I’ll never forget.  I had to write a piece on… well, that part I forget.  All I remember from the whole experience was that I ended up going on and on about Tiger Woods.  About how I feel his naturally talents could have possibly been squandered by being put into golf at such an early age.  On how his mind might have been built to tackle insane astrophysics or abstract geometry – not to hit a little ball in a hole far away.  I don’t believe I ever made my point in the essay, and I remember rushing to even finish a sentence before the clock ran out on the computer.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Drunken ramblings work better as vocal rants than as GRE essays.