After months (which seemed like years) of preparation, the day of the bar was here. I will be honest: I lost such much hair in those few months that I thought I would be bald by the summer’s end. Fortunately, the only reminder is a little bald spot that is now just slowly attacking my dome.

Now back to the story: While watching American Idol the night before and doing some sporadic studying, I had a couple (or four) cocktails to calm my nerves. This helped me get a little bit of sleep, but to be honest, I was pretty restless that night as I still have nightmares about sleeping through the bar. When my alarm went off the first morning, I remember letting out an “Oh shit” and then told myself, “F*@#& it, you are ready” and hopped out of bed. By my own admission, I am not much of exerciser, but I took a quick lap in the hotel pool to try and wake up. I then took a quick shower (please, for the sanity of those around you: use soap), threw on a t-shirt and sweatpants, and headed off to the bar site.

Any tension I had that morning evaporated pretty quickly – not because I was confident but for another reason. About fifteen minutes before we were supposed to take our assigned seats, I was standing around talking to a few friends when I felt an unwelcome tug on the legs of my sweatpants and watched in disbelief as they hit the floor. Yes, a friend “pantsed” me in front of an enormous warehouse-sized room full of people. The only thing that saved complete embarrassment was the fact that I had made the conscious decision to throw on some boxer shorts that morning. Crisis averted. Even though I screamed several expletives at my friend, any tension I had was gone and I was completely relaxed.

Once I took my seat, I had one goal. This goal may make me seem like a complete asshole, but hey, it worked. The exam passage rate in the State of Texas is somewhere around eighty percent. There were about thirty people sitting on my row. So, like any twisted individual who likes statistics, I quickly scanned the table for the six people of the thirty that were going to fail. One of these guys was sitting directly diagonally from me. He was easy money. He had the look of death on his face and hadn’t even remembered to bring his ID or any pencils into the exam room. This theory was confirmed on day three of the exam. Day three of the Texas bar is all essays. Examinees are given a series of different colored “bluebooks” to answer each question. About ten minutes into the exam, he stopped writing in book one and tossed it aside. He looked at the second question (which in all fairness was a tough property question), looked at me, raised his shoulders in the air with a “WTF” look on his face, and tossed that book aside. About an hour later, my neighbor was done and out the door. I don’t remember exactly how long we were given that day, but he only used about twenty-five percent of the allocated time. Needless to say, if you are reading this after having already taken the Texas bar, it is likely that this guy sat across from you, as I am sure he has repeated taking the exam several times since.

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