Moment in history

Over the past few years most of my friends have decided to go back to school. The percentage is pretty equally split between business school and law school, although there is the occasional public policy or architecture thrown in there.

Breezing through some of their applications I found they looked strangley familiar. GPA, letters of recommendations, essays. From what I remember from undergrad applications, essays invoked a sense of acute literarly turmoil. Were graduate school applications any different? Not really. The prompts were generally the same - effectively yielding another hashmark in the "things never change" column.

Here are a few examples of prompts:

1. If you could have dinner with one person living or dead, who would it be and why?

2. What is a major challenge that you have overcome?

3. If you could time travel to any moment in history, which would you choose and why?

Pretty standard.

Here are my answers:

1. Nostradamus. I just want him to know how high his prediction batting average is.

2. Not being able to breathe underwater.

The third one is a no-brainer.

3. If i could choose any moment in history, I would choose the day that the tribe of proto-men decided to tell a less astute proto-man that it was no longer okay to fuck monkeys and/or apes.

PM1: Hey, Uglusk, can we chat a second?

UG: Sure, what's up?

PM1: Dude, I don't know if you got the email...

UG: What's email?

PM2: Shut the fuck up, Uglusk.

UG: No, seriously, I don't know what email is---

PM1: It doesn't matter. Uglusk, maybe you haven't noticed, but we've all been (stiffles laughter) banging chicks that walk upright.

The proto-men (save Uglusk) howl with laughter.

PM2: It's been like two weeks, man. Every time we ritually group-mate with the skirts in the camp, I look over and you're all up in a primate.

UG: Her name is Karen.

They laugh again.

UG: Fuck all of you. Karen gets me. Maybe I don't connect with the women here. But Karen .... Karen and I know exactly who we are to each other. And fuck email, whatever that is.

The proto-men laugh so hard their bodies convulse. Their convulsions turn to a group movement. They begin to dance.