#4: ACT actually stands for Agonizing Corporal Trauma

Chronicle #4

So, at the beginning of my senior year in high school, I signed up to take the ACT, which is like the SAT, but I was trying to get into BYU, which preferred the ACT. I had already taken the ACT at the end of my junior year, but I wanted to see if I could get a better score and (*crossing fingers*) get a scholarship.

The day of the test came, and I wasn't terribly nervous, but I'm pretty sure I ate a tuna sandwich for breakfast because I'd heard tuna helps your brain and thus is good to eat before taking tests.

Fast Forward a couple hours. I'm taking the test, with probably at least 30 other kids in the room. I was in the aisle closest to the door, almost in the back, but there were a few other people behind me. It was deathly quiet, kids hurrying to fill in the correct black bubbles, determined to get into the universities of their choice...or into any college at all. Most of us just wanted the torture to be over. Nerves are on edge, everyone is extremely focused on one thing--to conquer the ACT, without collapsing into a mind-breaking apathetic state that would ruin their test scores.

And then, out of nowhere, somewhere between Question 56 and Question 372, the most unfeminine noise erupted forth from between the crevices of my butt cheeks. 

Sweet mother of every test I have ever taken, was that ME?!?!?!?

I couldn't believe it. I had really just passed audible gas in the most quiet place within a 150-mile radius. I didn't look around. That would give me away. Every organ in my body seemed to have stopped in utter disbelief that my bowels would do something so unethical at such an inopportune moment. But then, in rebellion, and as if to dispel any doubt that what had happened had really taken place, my stomach began to sound off warning bells. I clenched my cheeks. I tried to close off every possible escape route. But the second emerging bubble of internal toxins was as eager to reach the light at the end of the tunnel and leave the vicinity of my body as I was to leave the vicinity of the building.

Sssssshpthpthp!!!!!!!!

Oh please merciful heavens why NOW?? At this point, I probably started praying to God, that if He would have mercy on me, that he could have my intestines calm down at least until the test was over. But in this war of good and evil, God gave way to His sense of humor and the hosts of heaven started busting out the popcorn to sit on their comfy cloud couches and sadistically watch me suffer in miserable humiliation as my bowels continued to have a full-blown intestinal fiesta. I think about every 2 or 3 minutes a gaseous comet blasted out of its previous solar system into the classroom's atmosphere, making its presence known without fail every time. In a state of frantic desperation, I started to rub my pencil's eraser onto the surface of my desk, hoping against hope that it would produce the same noise my body was creating, so people would blame that source instead. But my attempt at scapegoating failed and I just magnetized the direction of my face toward my test. I then realized I couldn't remember how many people were behind me. Even if the people on the other side of the room hadn't heard, surely the person behind me had. Unless he or she were physically deaf. But I doubt it.  I just was sure not to look around to give myself away. People had to be staring disgustedly in my direction, boring laser beams of tangible hatred into my soul...I was sure of it. 

I can't remember how long the torture lasted. Whatever it was, it was too long. The test ended about a decade later, and I left, careful to avoid the eye contact of anything else that had a heart beat. I waited outside for my ride and finally left that horrible place that had, through no fault of its own, become a site of teenage torture. 

A few months later, I received my test scores. I got an overall score of 2 points lower than the first time. So long scholarship. Looking back, eating a tuna sandwich that morning probably hadn't been the best idea. I don't think I've done that since. And even though I wasn't pleased with my score, and easily had enough time to try again, I have never taken another ACT exam since either.