Please leave a message after the beep...

Now, the “good luck on the exam!” calls are coming. People keep speaking to me. They keep trying to contact me. I can no longer distinguish between normal statements and statements that are designed to upset me. You decide:

“I have complete faith that you’re going to pass this time!”

“Hey, you only have a few more days left!”

“Do you want to hang out this Friday?”

“Just calling to say hi. I wanted to catch up (i.e. tell you everything, in minute detail, about everything that’s going on in my life) so call me back!” Followed by a second message: “Hey, you still haven’t called me back. Call me!”

“How’s the studying going?”

Really, any phone call that requires mustering up any kind of social etiquette annoys me. I think, really, any kind of call that mentions the exam at all by those people in our lives who are (1) oblivious to the world of law and this excruciating rite of passage, and (2) people who have already passed. That only leaves people who are studying for the exam as people I can potentially talk to and not want to hit. Those people, and my husband, who has learned not to bring it up at all and to pretend that it’s not happening. He just leaves me alone and responds to my occasional demands and outbursts. I am not fit to be among people right now.