So I have a theory regarding the GRE. It goes as follows: if you’re smart enough to manage to sign yourself up for this god-forsaken exam, you shouldn’t have to actually take the test in order to get into graduate school. Seriously. I spent a good hour and a half on the phone this afternoon just trying to get an appointment (okay, it probably didn’t help that the whole world’s also trying to get an appointment before October 1, when the test gets an additional writing section). If you can guess the correct number to call without making two or three phone calls in error, you’re honestly smarter than I.

A lesser man would have given up after calling three “incorrect” numbers (quotation marks ’cause, by all rights, they should have been “correct” numbers). A lesser man might have given up after waiting, even before I got to wait on hold, for upwards of 20 minutes, listening to a recorded voice drone on about test procedures. A lesser man probably would have hung up when the attendant answered and immediately started reading from the same script from which the recorded voice (noted above) read. They are not I, though. I persevered, and got my appointment in Boston on September 17th. For my hard work, I pay $109, plus time lost. Great.