A test tonight

I took a mid-term exam tonight. In a subject I truly do not like.

It’s my mother’s fault.

You see, some years ago she made me promise to finish this degree. And I was dumb enough to make the promise. I mean, we didn’t pinky swear or anything but a promise is a promise, after all.

Then she had the bad grace to pass away.

 So, here I sat in a room by myself with the proctor watching from another room through the camera up high on the front wall. And I sat there and dutifully regurgitated facts and calculated and listed and commented.

I couldn’t help feeling a bit silly. I mean, here I am pushing sixty and I’m just now taking my fourth-from-last-ever college course. And sitting an exam under the eagle eye of a twenty-something minder, lest I sneak a lookup on the Internet using my i-Something, which of course I would never do even if I knew how which I don’t.

I could and should have sailed through college when I was in my twenties and had the GI Bill to support me, instead of trying to cram in these last few credits after work and between teaching trips of my own. I had energy then, and a certain lack of other responsibilities. 

Okay, so maybe this isn’t Mom’s fault. Sometimes I’d like to go back and just thonk the then-me upside the head. What was I thinking?