I have a physics test tomorrow. We’ve all been studying for it for far too long, as evidenced by the following story:

During a morning conversation with a few other postbacs about how screwed we all were, which somehow involved talking about someone’s dog, we got to talking about pets. A brilliant idea surfaced: We should get a postbac pet that can roam the halls of the continuing studies building (okay, perhaps not the best idea).  We were talking about what we should name this hypothetical pet, and the thought suddenly popped into my head:

“We should get a cat and name it… <dramatic pause> M-Cat.” (aka medical college admissions test, for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about)

My friends smiled, laughed a little, and moved on. I, however, could not. The idea of M-cat began to root itself in my brain and expand, firm in its own belief that it was the Funniest Thing Ever. I came up with a hundred jokes in the next twenty minutes:

• I’m gonna get a cat and name it M-Cat. Then I can be honest when I say I’m allergic to the MCAT. (The last time I visited a friend with a cat, named Cosmo, I had to take so many Benadryl that I couldn’t make a sentence with more than one clause).
• The cat needs to be very friendly at first, then when you say the wrong thing to it start scratching the hell out of you.
• We should take M-Cat and throw it around. Then we can say we passed the MCAT. In fact, we can paint it, then say we passed it with flying colors.
• We can… okay, I’ll stop now.