As I was looking for some more information on an extra credit project for my class I stumbled upon a dimwitted question a fellow student had asked the whole class on our class’ discussion board. The Professor had asked everyone to bring a Scantron to class for an exam next week. That’s when I found inspiration!

It had read, “Does anybody know what the heck a Scantron is?! And where I can find one?”

My jaw dropped and I showed all my roommates. Now I could understand if this student was older, much older, and not in the generation of taking test after test on Scantron. And this explanation is for that generation, a Scantron is a sheet littered with bubbles or squares and possibly ovals. You fill them completely in with the almighty No.2 pencil, I think the consequence of using anything but a No. 2 pencil is living an eternity burning in hell or something. You take a multiple choice test and match your answer with the corresponding bubble on your Scantron. Or if you spaced that there was an exam that day and the instructor starts passing out exams and you think to yourself, “AW HELL NO!” and you go into mind reading mode and try to bubble in a pattern your instructor would have thought of. Or make a nice piece of art from your bubbles, either way your chances are just as good of getting an F.

When you finish you turn your Scantron in and your instructor runs them through a machine that automatically grades your answers. Anyway that’s all besides the point! How retarded can this kid be, he’s in college now and he doesn’t know what a Scantron is? So to answer his question without bluntly saying, “You’re an idiot!” I came up with some creative writing to let everyone have a good laugh at my classmates expense.

“ It’s a robot from that instant summer hit movie, “Transformers.” It scans your body and robs you of your valuables before it scans the best way possible to decimate you. Then it scans the internet for your family and finds them, then scans the universe for the most gravitatious planet and sends your family, including your dog, there to suffer a heavy burden. And just when you think it’s all done he scans the Earth for your future wife and the almighty Scantron takes her out on a most elegant date and she starts to fall in love with the almighty Scantron on this very same night. But the almighty Scantron has to get her home by midnight or her Dad will have the almighty Scantron’s head! So they have a romantic doorstep scene that your future wife will never forget. And the very next day you know what the almighty Scantron does? He doesn’t call her! What a jerk, I know! Now the almighty Scantron is done. That about sums up what a Scantron is…

(Very few have seen him but I have attached a link to a very elusive photo from a a New York tourist who accidentally pushed the camera button and didn’t know what he had till he developed the film!)”

This is a rather large class so I received many comments sharing their laughter and even adding to my story and a few “WTF”s. I planned to write a whole page but it was 3am and still had an assignment paper due.