Is There Anything Worse Than Waiting?

Waiting sucks. It makes you miserable. The uncertainty of the possible outcome of a wait makes it even less bearable. I mean sure, waiting for a train sucks, but at least you know the train is eventually coming. So, in the spirit of interminability, here are my thoughts on three of the shittiest waits around (in ascending order of shittiness).

Crap wait #1 – The pre-employment drug test
(the maybe-I-won’t-pass-but-not-so-bad- outcome wait)
In terms of shitty waits, this one’s pretty JV, but I’m starting out easy. You go in, you piss in the cup, and you worry. Usually, such worrying is needless – you know you didn’t smoke for the past three weeks . . . but do you really not? Did you get too much secondhand from a friend, from that concert, did you accidentally smoke that night you got super hammered, did your friend really put heroin in your drink at the bar, or was he kidding? All these ideas linger in your head for the week, til you finally get that call – Congratulations; the job you’ll grow to resent is yours!!! In fact, after you almost wish you wouldn’t have passed!???!

Shitty scale of 1-10 – 4

Crap wait #2 – The aids test
(the extremely-unlikely-I-won’t-pass-but mother-of-bad-outcomes-wait)
This is definitely one of the crappier of the waits. You know, with absolute certainty, that you DO NOT have AIDS. You aren’t Magic Johnson promiscuous. You’ve given up receiving anal in an alley from a guy named Bruno since your last AIDS test [but did you really? Yes, really]. So why are you so worried? Because if you DO fail this one, you are totally screwed [and only figuratively, my friend]. It’s the magnitude of the possible outcome that makes this wait so hard. Even 99.99999% certainty isn’t enough to put your mind at ease when it comes to this one.

Shitty scale of 1-10 – 7

Crap wait #3 – The Bar Exam results wait
(the king of all shitty waits – combines the worst elements of the maybe-I-won’t-pass-but-not-so-bad- outcome wait and the extremely-unlikely-I-won’t-pass-but mother-of-bad-outcomes-wait)
AHHH, the masochistic California Bar Examiners. In their infinite wisdom, they have ingeniously devised a system by which (1) the odds of passing are 50-50; (2) if you don’t pass you are absolutely screwed [again, only figuratively]; and (3) the wait is 4 MONTHS long. Let that sink in – 4 FUCKING MONTHS. This wait sucks so bad I have to break it down by month.

July – The waiting period in July is only a couple days. However, you think about whether you passed all the time because you just got done with the piece of crap and you swear to yourself that you’ll never take it again, pass or fail. You really want to have passed.

August – Fortunately, in August, you don’t really think about the test. Usually, you’re too drunk on the beach enjoying the unemployed life, or in Europe, or [fill in the blank with fun distracting shit].

September – You’ve been unemployed for over a month now, and it’s starting to not be cool anymore. Now, you think about the bar a lot because you realize that your parents, contrary to what you thought, do not love you more than anything and will actually cut you off at some point. Shitty realization. Random moments of bar panic ensue every so often.

October – The first half of October is pretty similar to September. Then October 19th comes and you realize that your life begins or ends in exactly one month. Panic ensues until Halloween, when you dress up like someone else and get hammered.

November – Let the subliminal countdown begin. 19, 18, 17 days to go. Each passing day allows less sleep and causes more anxiety. Finally, on the 15th, you realize that you are 5 days away. . . FIVE DAYS. After this whole 6-month odyssey, you are 5 days away from discovering whether those past 6 months have been sufficiently productive [or if the next 6 months will be if you are taking it again]. Is panic too great a word to describe the constant feeling this week? I don’t know, I’ve forgotten how to think!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shitty scale 1-10 – 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 (I tried to stop at ten but my subconscious would not let me – I had to beat the keyboard off of my hand – the zero key broke off and is still stuck on my index finger).

Anyway, you get the idea. This was a feeble attempt to get all my fellow lawyers-in-waiting to think about something else for a few minutes.

Good luck!!!!!! See you all Friday, Esquires!!!!!!!!!!!!!!