Double Irony is a Bitch

I’ve been hard at work deluding myself that I could possibly make a career out of writing. The next step in my unreachable fantasy is to apply to grad schools to get a degree. Grad schools, as a part of their admissions requirements, demand applicants to take a test called the GRE and submit their scores. 

After some research, I discovered that the GRE is offered via computer through designated centers but, unfortunately, very early and considerably far away.  Oh, and they charge 160 dollars for you to TAKE a test, which is such a hustle it blows my mind.

After some initial hesitation, I finally signed myself up to take it.  My limited options led me to a timeslot at 8 in the morning at the nearest facility which happened to be over 60 miles away, despite the fact that I live in a college town. 

I had a terrible night’s sleep the evening before the test.  It was one of those nights where you lie awake for hours and hours only to wake up to your alarm and not be sure if you were actually awake or if your douche bag brain had been dreaming that you were lying sleeplessly in bed the whole night. 

I rolled out of bed feeling more tired than when I got in.

Drowsily, I got myself ready, picking up the pencils and passport that I had set aside the night before.  The passport would serve as a second form of ID in case they didn’t think that the picture of 15 year old me on my driver’s license was convincing enough.

I left the house and hoisted myself reluctantly into my car.  I punched things absently into “Carmen” the Garmin (My sister named her.  I would have named her “Bitch-Who-Always-Interrupts-Me-When-I’m-Talking-To-Someone-During-Road-Trips”).  After I had poked Carmen in the face enough times, she finally figured out where I wanted to go.  This began her 7 minute attempt to “locate satellites.”  Try looking up, Carmen.  I’m pretty sure up is a good place to look.

After doing a few laps around my neighborhood, she was finally ready to go.

Carmen took me straight to a main highway which was unusually intelligent of her.  She usually has an inexplicable penchant for choosing routes that lead her unwitting victims down single lane state roads where they inevitably get stuck behind slow moving trucks spewing hay out of the back.

About thirty minutes into the trip, Carmen directed me to exit the highway.  I was skeptical, but she indicated that we’re only about 20 minutes away from our destination, so I exited the highway.  The road she led me down quickly became rural and she said that we’ll be on this road for another two miles.

Okay, Carmen.  I knew you’d do this.  I know your games.  When I looked at Google Maps last night, it said we were supposed to be on a highway the whole time.  I call bullshit.

So I turned around and reentered the highway.  Sometimes when you just force Carmen down main roads, she takes the hint and recalculates your new route using highways instead of tiny country roads.

Carmen’s reaction was not what I had hoped:  At the next exit in five miles, do a U-Turn and go back to where I was friggin’ taking you.

Noooo, Carmen had been right.  The box in the lower right hand corner of her screen that estimated time of arrival turned instantly from 7:15 to 7:32 as if to say:   I know all of the roads.  Literally.  Now stop second guessing and treat me like the deity that I am.

I drove bashfully down the highway and did the u-turn.  I had just unnecessarily tacked fifteen minutes onto the trip, but I was still going to be half an hour early to my appointment.  No harm, no foul.

I finally got back to the intersection where I had initially lost faith in Carmen.  I gave her an apologetic pat on her robot head and followed her instructions.

Six minutes later, I was bouncing down a gravel road with water-filled potholes and broken mailboxes strewn about.

WHAT THE HELL, CARMEN?  WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?  There is NO WAY there is a testing facility for grad school out here.  No one in this area is looking to get another degree.  Putting a center here would be a terribly unsound business venture.

I grabbed my phone which is fortunately of the “smart” variety.  I opened my test confirmation email and tracked the included location with Google Maps.

38 miles and 44 minutes until destination, it informed.

I sat in disbelief, staring at my phone.

Then I yelled a battle cry and slapped Carmen right across her deceitful mouth.  “You harpy wench!  You have led me astray for the last time!”  I shrieked as I ripped her from the dashboard, gave her a hard elbow to the gums, and chucked her into the back seat.

Recalculating... she gurgled from somewhere behind me.

My phone in my left hand, I jerked the wheel around hard with my right.  The car kicked up gravel as I did a violent half-donut in some farmer’s driveway. 

I was so mad.  I didn’t want to reschedule this test.  I hadn’t studied a ton, but I didn’t want to have to worry about this any more than I already had.  I wanted to get it over with.

My phone led me back to the very same highway which I had thought might be a faster way to the testing facility before Carmen had rebuked me.  This is where literally said out loud, “Goddamn Double Irony!”  I had been wary of Carmen and tried to stay on the highway but she told me I was wrong.  I obeyed her commands only to, after consulting a second technological device, be told that I was right after all.  It wasn’t good enough for me to just have second guessed her.  I should have second guessed her second guess of my second guess.

I was tearing down the interstate toward my destination when the car made a “ping” sound and an indicator came on that said “low tire pressure.”  I was going 88 miles per hour at the time (fast enough for time travel).

“Screw it.  If I blow a tire and hit a tree, I hit a tree.”  I thought to myself.  My judgment was clouded by a dangerous mixture of sleep deprivation and a loathing for technology.

A moment later, the sun peaked out over the horizon and I realized how much it must suck to regularly have the morning shift in job that is East of your house.  I quickly had to decide what was more important:  seeing the cars in front of me or not having crispy retinas.

So many forces had convened to try to keep me from getting to this test.  I felt like a modern day Odysseus only more physically diminutive and with really lame problems. 

I sped the rest of the way to the facility.  I got there 7 minutes after 8.  Perhaps by some small miracle, they admitted me.  The test itself no longer felt like it was a huge obstacle.  I was actually relieved to have made it.  It seems perverse that adversity actually took away my nervousness about the test.  I think I might be on to something.

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