HI! There's little point in writing about myself, so here's a vignette.

[Archived from the old PENNY ARCADE forums] - author unknown

Well it was about 6 or 7 years ago, right after I got married. I was still in community college at the time.

My wife and I typically took one car in the mornings to save gas, since she worked at the veterinary office nearby. I would usually walk on over after classes, get lunch on the way home and she'd go back to work.

A bit of background on my first class of the day. Attendance was pretty much required, for two reasons. One: it counted for 30% of the grade, and missing a class guaranteed you would lose 5% of your final grade. Missing 7 classes meant an instant withdrawal from the course and a fail grade, but it was enough to know that if you missed 2 classes you would drop a letter grade. Two: if you had perfect attendance at the end of the semester, you received a 100% score on your final exam grade, which counted for something like 20% of your final grade. This is biology, by the way, and even though it was a community college course you didn't fuck around because it was a shitty hard class. Nobody wanted to miss a day of class because it meant you instantly received half of your possible points and it wouldn't matter so much that you got a D on all of your tests after using pretty much all of your free time for studying.

This professor locked the doors at precisely the time class began and would not open them up for you if you were a fraction of a second late. You missed the class and had no chance of being let in. No tardies. Yes my Bio professor was a bitch.

So on this particular morning, destiny was determined to make me leap over a little person.

During the night, we had a power failure. My alarm clock did not go off. I opened my eyes, looked at the alarm clock and noticed that the time was blinking 12:00. Blink. Blink. Blink. It took me about 4 or 5 seconds before it finally sank in that I had no fucking clue what time it was, and today was one of 3 test days that I could not afford to miss.

In essence, if I did not haul my ass to class in time to take this test, I would be forfeiting 10-20% of my final grade, in addition to being forced to take the final exam. Basically, I would have to work really hard to not fail this class. I think I'd gotten a B and a C on the other 2 tests, and the final was fucking comprehensive. The highest I would be able to make is a C, assuming I did everything perfectly from that point on.

I freaked out and leaped from the bed like a frog that had just been dropped onto a burning stove. After tearing around the room, throwing on some clothes haphazardly and grabbing my book bag, my wife and I got out to the car and I finally saw a clock that hadn't lost power. I had 20 minutes to make it to class, and we lived roughly 20 minutes away. At this point I'm wishing I drove a DeLorean with a flux capacitor.

So I put pedal to metal and make it to the school in record time, fortunately not encountering any peace officers on my way there. My car is parked at a slant in a fire zone while my wife walks over to take the wheel as I sprint for the front doors. I now have 3 or 4 minutes to make it inside the school, down the hallways and to the door before the lock goes *click* and I am fucking boned. It's a long run.

And of course, the hallways are fucking packed. I sprint through the gaps like I'm fucking dodging rain. I don't think I injured anybody but my heart is pounding and my palms are sweating and what, other people? Sorry I have to make it to the classroom. Finally I see a break in the sea of people, all I have to do is sprint through it, run around the column on the other side and it's a straight shot to the classroom. I have one minute left. I can fucking do this.

As I approach the column at full damn tilt, I'm dimly aware that a little person is stepping out from behind it. There are people on my left and right, and I can't stop in time to avoid barreling into her. My mind is racing. Time slows down. In that instant I have perfect clarity. I only have two options.

1) Try to stop, and wait for her to get out of the way. This will likely make me late to my class and might prove futile anyway, especially if I don't stop in time and knock this little person over.

My mind rejects this.

2) Leap the hell over her. I'm running fast enough. Maybe she won't notice. There's nobody on the other side of the little person, so I have a good chance of accomplishing this.

I jump.

As I sail over her head majestically, it hits me what I have done with full force. I have just propelled my body, 6'0" and 140 lbs., up and over a little person. What the fuck.

I slam onto the ground past her and keep running as fast as I can. I glance over my shoulder. The little woman's mouth is shaped like an "O", her eyes wide in disbelief. People are staring at her and at me. It occurs to me that I should apologize. "Sorry!" I yell as I keep running.

I made it to the test in time. I got a B in the class.

Oh and by the way, my clothes did not match. I had hastily thrown them on, and being colorblind didn't realize I looked like a drooling mongoloid had dressed himself in the dark. My wife laughed at me on the drive over. So I looked even more ridiculous bounding over her.

I heard the Achievement Unlocked sound after I did it, too, I think I forgot to mention that

Die Hard: The Little Leaping

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