We have all experienced this moment of pure terror and if you say you haven't, then you should stop lying to yourself, my friend. Allow me to set the scene for you.
You have just made it home after a long day of school, work, or whatever various obligations you have that take up your time and force you to adult. Your feet hurt because your shoes are professional and not practical, your contacts are dryer than the Sahara Desert, and every single bone in your body aches because contrary to popular belief, office chairs are not the best for lumbar support or overall comfort. You open the door and make a beeline for your room because, while the couch looks tempting, you know that if you give it even a second of your time, you will not make it to your bedroom, which is the ultimate goal.
Once in your room, you put on your "At home clothes". You know the one's I'm talking about. It's the clothes that you have to go deep into the closet for and I mean deep! So deep, in fact, that you might as well say hey to the entire cast of "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe". The shirt that you select is generally an old high school t-shirt with something clever on it like, "Senior Royalty," or, "Lady Wildcats". The shorts could pass for church wear because they are so "holey", and you don a pair of house slippers that (if you're anything like myself) look like dogs and bark with every step you take towards adulthood.
You make yourself a quick snack (i.e dive elbow deep into a bag of deli meat and cheese) and then head to bed.
You have just laid your head down, finished checking social media, and turned out the light. Right as you get comfortable, completely wrapped up in every blanket you have ever owned since the sixth grade, and then BAM!
You remember you have a paper due!
You fly out of bed with the speed of 10,000 Olympian sprinters and the finish line is your laptop. Once you are seated, the true terror begins: What the heck do you write about. At this point you will most likely take the following five steps in order to meet your deadline.
Step 1: Consume an unholy amount of energy drinks.
Now that your heart feels like it's ten seconds away from beating out of your chest, you can effectively...well, sit at the computer and freak out about not only having to write a paper, but also that you may be having self-induced heart palpitations all for the sake of your education. What a night, folks.
Step 2: Stare at your computer screen willing some unknown force to either make words appear, or take you out of your misery.
At this particular point in time you would accept either fate and consider it "helpful" to the current situation.
Step 3: Crack your knuckles and just start rambling!
I mean, they don't call it a "B.S" degree for nothing. Use the RedBull infused hallucinations to weave an intricate web of tangents and life lessons. Mix in a quote from some famous person and properly cite it in one of the 12,000 ways we have learned by college, and chances are you have some semblance of a good paper.
Step 4: Take a "well deserved" break.
You have been working for a total of fifteen minutes and have written your name, the teacher's name, and the date. This is a good start and further you ever expected to be at this point! Good work, soldier. We will return to this mission after checking every social media platform every made available.
Step 5: DOUBLE SPACE!
This one, small act will take your paper from half a page, to four pages in the blink of an eye. Seriously, why didn't we do this sooner?
By the time you have completed all of these steps it will most likely be four in the morning, leaving you about four hours to sleep before class. The important part is you survived! You put the work in and have at least a "B+" paper.
You are a rockstar!
You know you are going to waltz into that classroom and lay that paper down with the confidence of a well seasoned student.
Plot Twist...
The paper's due date get's changed to next week.