I took the GRE in English Literature a week ago and I just stopped crying myself to sleep on Thursday.

Let me just start by saying that I’m kicking myself for having registered late, because I had to take the exam in the Pleasantville, Westchester Pace University campus. The name is ironic, because that town was anything but pleasant. It was horrifyingly desolate, gray, and it’s probably where I’m going to be buried, because that’s all it’s good for.

Anyway, I drive up to Pleasantville at 7am, and as I’m pulling into the campus, I can’t help but notice that I’m the only person there. It was a Saturday, however, and it was early, so I wasn’t surprised not to see students walking around. I was a little surprised to see that there wasn’t a single car in any of the parking lots. In fact, come to think of it, there wasn’t a security guard at the gate, either. I think that Pleasantville was just a figment of my imagination – a product of my delirium. If I were to return to the Pace University campus in Pleasantville, it would probably just be a vacant lot filled with compost and dead pigeons.

So, I’m now sitting in the testing room with all 14 other students taking the exam and my lovely proctors, who I’m convinced were actually prison inmates eligible for parole and were fulfilling their community service requirements by proctoring the exam.

Here’s why: I’ve proctored an exam before. Out of all the harrowing jobs in the world, proctoring is relatively simple. You read the directions, which can be read by anyone with a 4th-grade reading level, you hand out the tests, you look around the room sporadically to make sure no one is cheating, and you let the students know how much time they have left every 20 minutes or so.

My proctors did none of that. At one point I had to ask how much time we had left (it’s a 2.5 hour exam), and she replied, “Huh? Oh, yeah. (looks at watch) I’ll tell you in exactly one minute.” After one minute had passed, she told us we had half an hour left. Good thing she waited one minute…because had she said we had 31 minutes left, the balance of the world would have been thrown off.

Nothing else interesting happened. I left a lot of questions blank because I don’t know when Shakespeare died or who wrote any of the obscure pieces of literature they cited from the 13th century. And frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. I just wanted to get out of Pleasantville before someone chased me out with a chainsaw.

-Alex Hajjar