pre-message warning: Forgive any typos; my g and h keys are being particularly temperamental. This can be annoyin and orrible.

So, I'm at work today, and get paged. Answer the phone; it's my dad.

"I have an envelope here from the bar association. Do you want me to open it?"

Now, understand, the bar association is NOT the entity responsible for administering the bar exam; that's the Supreme Court. And, the results get published on a website, eight days from today.

All of these thoughts went through my head. And NONE of them did anything to slow the pounding of my heart or my shaking.

"OF COURSE I want you to open it," I replied. WHAT POSSIBLE REASON WOULD I NOT WANT YOU TO OPEN IT? I'm thinking. (OK, it occurred to me that I was sitting in the midst of a number of people at the time and if in fact I found out I failed the bar exam in the midst of them, they'd be forever talking about the moment when Michael dissolved suddenly and unaccountably into tears.) No, let me, let me, let me drive from Sylvania to Port Clinton and spend an HOUR AND A HALF WONDERING IF IT'S A LETTER TELLING ME I PASSED.

I hear my dad opening the envelope. I continued to tell myself I knew it wasn't the results, while still envisioning myself at a bar association meeting, chuckling about how it was so funny how they pulled that thing on us unsuspecting examinees, releasing the results early and through the bar association and by mail.

"Ah," my dad said, "all it says is, 'In a few weeks, you'll learn whether you passed the bar...'"

Well, I KNEW that, Einsteins. Thank you so very much.

For Pete's sake, people. I didn't need that...