The Crumpet Collection: Failed Quizzes, Four Years in Review

Top 10 Failed Quizzes: Four Years in Review

Only in college is it acceptable to make use of studious time to fail a quiz or two for the sake of extra-textual “learning.” For in learning to “fail,” well, there is a memorable lesson in itself.

Failed Quiz #1: When one agrees to being uprooted in the middle of the night for a drive to Wild Bill’s under the pretense of it being a “country bar” only to be thrown into one’s first encounter with hip hop and the rapper scene, that 8 a.m. exam arrives all too soon.

Failed Quiz #2: Attempting to uphold the ethics of underage-non-drinking is not always rewarded when one attempts to shoot Sprite from miniature bathroom cups only to nearly drown on carbonation overload.

Failed Quiz #3: Police speed-watcher officers often lie in wait on the onramps lining I-75 in south Georgia during Spring Break season to nab speeding spring speed breakers. As a driver it helps to be watching for them rather than craned away from the wheel for a photo op from a camera in the backseat. However, if timed appropriately, such a photo can also be evidence of actual speed if the speedometer gets clipped in the photo.

Failed Quiz #4: When sabotaging a car in the middle of the night for a birthday, bring a towel to wipe off the dew to lengthen the lifespan of stewed-upon-for-weeks witticisms such as “Will you light my (birthday) candle?”

Failed Quiz #5: After deliberating among six people, three computers, two Skype connections, and a few speaker phone calls over which country is cheapest and safest to get to for a week, one should, at 3 a.m., always be sure to purchase airline tickets only once. Two confirmation e-mails (and a failed reading quiz) later is a heart-stopping way to greet the light of day.

Failed Quiz #6: Enter a sketch basement bar with a $20 cover for “all you can drink” is a bad, bad mindset for the brain. “Getting one’s money’s worth” keeps paying for itself 16 hours later after horribly bumpy airplane landings and a seven hour drive home.

Failed Quiz #7: Grace Kelley night sounds superb in theory as a way to celebrate momentous achievements, but after everyone has Googled to see exactly what “Grace Kelley” attire means, acquires it, and then goes out for cheap drinks (in Rome), “overdressed” is the word of the evening.

Failed Quiz #8: What the pretty frat boys with pastel pants and bowties don’t tell you about Steeplechase on rainy, tornado-watch days is to drive a vehicle with hardcore 4-wheel drive. Toyota Corollas aren’t exactly “mudding” material, though, for that matter, neither are pearls and white dresses and pastel pants.

Failed Quiz #9: The best stroke of brilliance for a headline often comes at 3 or 4 a.m. post-Carrier dance party in a mostly-desolate office to the tune of “Zombie,” “My spoon’s too big,” “Big Pimpin,’” “Banana Phone” or other various YouTube background streamings. Many a quiz has been failed in pursuit of getting the campus newspaper on the racks at a reasonable hour Thursday morning.

Failed Quiz #10: Friends have to look out for each other when gentleman callers request an audience with a roommate outside at 2 a.m., which is how the covert non-smoker smokescreen was developed as a way for concerned friends to chaperone such meetings under the ruse of “smoking” study utensils. From afar, those white BIC pens could pass for cigs, surely.

Most missed failing that, unfortunately I deem only appropriate for college, is rapping like a gangsta with some shades and da bling to “Pop Lock and Drop It.” Those are the best kind of “study breaks”-turned-failed-quiz.

While reading quizzes are important, may the college student in us all slip on those rapper shades every so often in the big bad adult world.



As a bonus track, below I have listed the top soundtracks to accompany the various “failings” and orchestrations over the past few years for JHo and friends:

“Boots with the Fur” (also known as Low) Flo-Rida
“It’s Tricky” – Run-D.M.C.
“Don’t Stop Believin’” --Journey
“You’re So Vain” –Carly Simon
“Total Eclipse of the Heart” –Bonnie Tyler
“Touch You Once” (also known as “If You Leave” –Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark
“I’ll Make a Man out of You” –Mulan

Stay tuned for the Crumpet Collection’s continuation into life back at the homestead. This will be an interesting year.

Peace out Brussels sprouts, yo.