Back in school I liked to show off when writing essays. I always wanted to pull off something big — start off plain as hell, then hit the reader with a sudden turn at the end. A surprise, you know? Problem was, the teachers never gave me the chance. The prompts were always stuff like “A Meaningful Day,” “A Meaningful Event,” “The Wall Clock at Home.” All of them had to be wholesome and uplifting. I couldn’t write about how I helped an old lady cross the street and then, once we got to the other side, she flashed a lecherous grin, dropped her pants, and revealed a giant cock — turns out she was an old man all along. Nor could I write about the wall clock at home and then, at the very end, twist it around and reveal the clock was actually a vibrator. Then one day, on an exam, they gave us a topic essay: “How to Express the Hypocrisy Between People.” I was thrilled. I started plotting out the perfect essay — a seemingly upstanding gentleman who, right at the end, gets unmasked as a scheming, vicious little shit — when I hit a problem: The answer sheet was running out of space! I had less than half a page of grid paper left, and the plot was just about to kick off… There was no extra space on the exam, either. After weighing my options, I started compressing the ending. Compress, compress, compress, until it was down to a couple of lines and a hasty wrap-up. The final essay read like total nonsense: this straight-laced guy suddenly turns into an absolute bastard, and the only explanation between the two is a single sentence… The teacher looked at me with a mocking expression and consoled me by saying that next time I shouldn’t go off on my own and write this kind of boring garbage — stick to argumentative essays, those are more reliable. Her wording was very tactful and encouraging, but that look in her eyes was clearly the look you give someone who just failed spectacularly at showing off. Of course, years later I don’t need to worry about page limits when I write. But I never imagined I’d get to experience that same look and attitude from my old teacher again.