How to Justify Spending Your Time Drinking Instead of Studying For Midterms

Any knowingly-awful decision can be Timothy-Olyphant-style justified by making frivolous promises with your future self. You know, you’ll say you’ll start paying off your student loans after you buy the second jetski. You say you’ll start exercising and respecting yourself after you finish your bulk crate of Hot Pockets. You say you’ll finally get help for your alcoholism right after St. Patrick’s Day; wait, make that after March Madness; wait, make that after summer.

Midterm Season is no different. With an exam looming tomorrow morning, this is the point when that adorably persuasive inner voice chirps up. The voice’s tone varies; today he might be in the mood to nap, or drink, or perhaps he’s just hankerin’ for some good ol’ fashioned pussy poachin’.

Studying tonight is an option, but tomorrow could potentially bring any number of vomiting-hobo/erupting-toilet/spilling-garbage-truck disasters that’d cause you to miss the test regardless. You don’t want waste the night studying with a possible exam-deterrent looming tomorrow. So, logically, you throw on some Netflix and pregame with some procrastination-whiskey before heading out to a party later to scoop up some like-willed, low-standard-having pootie tang.

The next morning you’re up early, cursing yourself for going out as you open your computer. You figure you can get maybe an hour of preparation in before heading over. Thoughts race; you hate yourself for not studying, drinking too much, and thinking you could freestyle rap at that party.

However, right then, a beautiful miracle of an email emerges. Apparently, your decrepit professor died in his sleep last night and the exam’s been pushed back a day. Immediately, you round up the roommates and announce you’re all going to breakfast to celebrate. Though, after that, you assure yourself, you’re really going to buckle down and use the day to prepare.

Your breakfast out is typical—typical in the sense that you had four Bloody Marys and insisted on stopping at the liquor store to procure supplies for day drinking afterwards. You’ve put some mild thought into it; there’s a bunch of idiots in your class, so how tough could the midterm possibly be? There’s that loud eater who’s already sat on and ruined two laptops this semester. There’s that hot-mouthed girl who’s dumb beyond dumb, but never called out for it since everyone not-so-secretly wants to wriggle their dong around in said hot mouth. And it’s not like the rest of the chuckleheads in that class are a bunch of rocketing science men. Suddenly, day drinking is completely justified, at least for a few hours. After that, you could always stop, take an Adderall, and prep for six hours or so before bed. You figure six hours on uppers is totally equivalent to a full day of non drug-fueled study.

Afternoon sipping subsides into evening liquor-bonging. You had second thoughts a few hours ago, but rationalized that, by the time that you sobered up, you didn’t have enough time left to even make a difference by studying.  Trying to prepare at this point is a lost cause.

For better or worse, you down another beer and head out to a party, pocketing the Adderall and suspecting it could provide the energy and focus you need should another opportunity arise to freestyle rap.

Justin Gawel is an adult baby from Michigan whose articles appear on BroBible most Thursdays. Look for more of his writing, his BroBible.com archive, and his updates at www.justingawel.com or follow him @justingawel on Twitter.