It was February 21st, 12:28pm, and I had just pulled an all-nighter studying for my Sociology midterm. As I sat at my desk eagerly waiting to start the 25-question exam, I heard the classroom door swing open. Assuming it was just another student who had barely made it to class on time, I didn’t bother looking up. Suddenly, my ears perked.
“Ey what up OJ!”
There’s no way. There’s no way that could be OJ Mayo. I had never once seen him in lecture. I finally decided to look up. Sure enough, dressed from head to toe in a bright red Trojan warm-up was our 6 feet 4 inch freshman guard. Temporarily star-struck, it took me a few seconds to realize that there was a vacant seat to my right. The very seat OJ Mayo was walking toward. The very seat OJ Mayo sat down in.
“What up man, you study for this thing?”
I was determined to play it cool with my response.
“Yea kind of. It shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Yea I hope so. I just wanna finish this thing and get the hell up outta here.”
I took out my phone to check the time. 12:33pm. I looked around for the professor. She had started handing out the tests, but was still well in front of where I was sitting. I had plenty of time. Making a point to keep my facial expression casual as my fingers furiously typed away, I sent a text message to each of my closest friends: “I AM TAKING MY MIDTERM NEXT TO OJ MAYO RIGHT NOW.” Send. Power off. Then I put my phone back in my pocket.
The professor had finally made her way to our row when I realized the reason why I was sitting here in the first place: I still had a midterm to take. As I tried to refocus myself, OJ’s voice rudely chimed back into my head.
“Ey dawg, you have an extra pencil I could borrow?”
I looked through my backpack for an extra pencil, found one, and handed it to him. Of course, that is what I should have done. This is what I actually did:
“Yea dude. Here, take this one.” I handed him the perfectly sharpened pencil that was already in my hand, the only pencil that I had. I dug through my backpack and found only a pen, a useless instrument for the scantron the professor had just handed me. Frantically trying to figure out what to do, I arrived at three possible courses of action.
Option A: I raise my hand to ask the professor for a pencil, who would likely agree and hand me one. But by verbally making this request, OJ would undoubtedly consider me a moron for loaning him my only pencil. I quickly discarded this option.
Option B: I kindly ask OJ for my pencil back, apologizing for mistakenly giving him my only pencil. However, as the first person in human history to do this, I would be portraying a shameful level of idiocy to OJ. This seemed even less logical than Option A.
Finally, Option C: I can read through the exam, mark the answers on the side with my pen, and wait for OJ to finish and give my pencil back. I decided to go with Option C, gambling that OJ would finish his exam with enough time for me to transfer my answers.
True to his word, OJ finished that thing, and got the hell up outta there. In fact, he was one of the first to finish, and even remembered to give my pencil back. I transferred my answers from my exam to my scantron, and finished the test well within the hour time limit.
Whether I go on to accomplish anything significant or not, I will always be able to say that I let OJ Mayo borrow my pencil for a Sociology midterm. OJ, if you’re reading this, you owe me. You owe me big time.
A final note: there doesn’t appear to be a profitable market on eBay for “pencil used by OJ Mayo” yet. I think I’ll keep it for now.
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