The Brink of Madness

So, tomorrow's the last day of my current test scoring project whereupon I read two hundred essays a day referring to the same prompt (What would you do if you had a rusty old key? Wash it in the sink? Yeah, wash it with soap and water, fuck head! You do that!) and I think everyone involved in the project is going a little crazy, if not reaching THE BRINK OF MADNESS ITSELF!!!!

Usually the scoring room, full of about sixty people pushed to the far edges of boredom set up in computer lab rows, is pretty quiet, in a library kind of way, but when someone laughs at some random thing they've read the laughter's a little too loud, a little too many heads turn to stare at the offending laugher with a vacuous grin upon their own pale faces. Anything amuses us. Anything. I've created an eraser smiley face by digging out its features with a bent paper clip, using much the same ingenuity that can be found in your local prison. I've also read the pot luck sign-up sheet in the hallway about a dozen times now, and I won't even be around for the damn thing. Someone is bring "cold fried chicken" and there are three taco dips, so far. Buckle up, bitches!

The biggest way to slack off is to sneak out of the room, go into the break room, and hover around the break room tables with a Styrofoam cup in your hand while you furtively read the paper in a nonchalant manner. You're not sitting down-you're just passing through. There's always at least three or four scorers doing this at the same time. We barely make eye contact before we look away.

If you don't notice someone, how can you be noticed yourself?

And stop tripping over keys, Youth of America!