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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   1109 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 1, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Well I took the bar exam this week. It sucked, but it's over. Fortunately my test center was relatively undisturbed, but many other test centers had a bunch of shit go laughably wrong and I'd like to regale you all with some of the stories I've accumulated from some of my friends who took the exam in other states and from reading the /r/barexam subreddit.

1 - DC. DC was apparently Ground Zero for the shit-storm this year. Day one they failed to do any bag searches for prohibited items, and I guess DC has a reputation for being incredibly lax on security, so multiple people brought cheat-sheets with them to the exam and would study them in the bathroom during the exam. People had friends and family bring them outlines during the lunch break. This led to much (justifiable) complaining on reddit, so on Day 2 the proctors chewed out the entire group and conducted bag searches, leading to about a dozen people getting written up for having prohibited items. Also on Day 2, perhaps as some form of protest perhaps out of sheer stupidity (I believe stupidity for reasons that will become clear) four different times people tried to walk out the wrong door and set off the fire alarm. Someone fired up a joint in the bathroom, and half the testing center reeked of weed. At least one person, and possibly more, filled out their scantron for the multiple choice in highlighter.

2 - Virginia. Virginia was apparently mostly well-proctored, but the building that the exam was conducted in, which is the same building the July bar exam has been conducted in every year for something like 10 years, conducted fire alarm testing during the afternoon session of Day 2. The building also had multiple toilets back up on both days, because the convention center the exam was being conducted in claimed they were unused to the demands of a few hundred people using the shitter at the same time.

3 - Iowa. Someone crammed their lunch into the toilet, which caused it to back up and spew raw sewage all over the bathroom floor.

4 - New York, Hofstra Center. This one is actually pretty horrific, a student had a heart-attack during the exam, and the proctors apparently made every wrong decision they could, including shush-ing people who were begging them to call 911, chastising students for trying to provide first aid, and ultimately causing a delay of several minutes before the student could receive medical attention. All students who didn't suffer a heart attack were expected to continue working on the exam. Reddit link with most of the facts.

5 - Hawaii. Tsunami warning meant the center evacuated. No word as of yet as to how they'll be addressing that.

There's probably more that I missed, but I think those are the highlights.

Someone crammed their lunch into the toilet, which caused it to back up and spew raw sewage all over the bathroom floor.

How does this even work? Is American plumbing significantly different?

Over here the tighest spot is the S-shaped curve at the bottom of the toilet itself, so that anything that gets past it cannot cause further blocks. Thus at worst you get (mostly) clean water spilling on the floor if you insist on flushing a blocked toilet multiple times.

In home or small business settings, or modern construction, that's the typical failure mode, and it's possible that the reporting is just conflating things. That said, in older construction of large buildings, it is very common to have choke points well in grey or blackwater pipes well after the restroom itself, either because of pipe narrowing around fittings, because of bad slope, or because of partial obstruction (roots, partially collapsed piping). When clogged at those points, you'll get wastewater from all of the points above it backfeeding over time.

This still isn't technically sewage, since it hasn't made it to the sewer, but it's still going to end up being quite a large number of toilets backing up at once.

I'm completely unsure, but the comment I saw said there was "raw sewage" everywhere as a result of the aforementioned lunch-smushing.

Someone fired up a joint in the bathroom

So, somebody went to a bar exam, the most important exam to become a lawyer, and thought "what I really need right now is to get really stoned! Like, completely baked out of my mind, this would do wonders for me!" And this person may soon become a lawyer and one day represent somebody in court.

It’s like Goku’s training weights, except they never take them off.

Past discussion of lawyers and marijuana

There are people, including lawyers and lawyers-to-be, who go through their entire days stoned. I have met them. They do things like take vape hits from THC pens the entire time they are awake. Someone getting high during the bar exam surprises me not at all.

I would guess they thought that weed would make them more relaxed and therefore more capable. Like the Ballmer Peak but with a different drug. I have no experience so can't say if it's plausible.

Well I took the bar exam this week. It sucked, but it's over.

UBE or a state-specific one?

State-specific.

I took it back in the stone age before the UBE, so mine was state-specific as well. From what I hear, the UBE seems pretty tame compared to the days of the state-specific wild and woolly bar exams. Hopefully yours didn't have too many curveballs.

Apparently this year the UBE was the one that went hog-wild. A lot of complaining about the essay portion focusing on subjects that are rarely tested, and not testing at all some of the "big" ones. I don't know which ones specifically, though I saw a comment saying that the MEE didn't have a single contracts question on it which I struggle to believe.

When I took the bar exam I was curious about the whole proctor situation. I mean, who takes a job that works four days a year? They were all elderly and obviously retired, but I thought that maybe they worked for some kind of proctor service where they would occasionally work whatever exam needed proctoring. But then I asked one of them and nope, they worked two days in February and two in July. I then talked to the guy who was reading all the instructions and looked to be in charge, thinking that he might be a professional, but no, he got the job after someone saw him in a community theater production and thought he had a good speaking voice.

So for the New York thing, I do remember them talking about what would happen in case of an emergency, but it was more like a fire or something else that would cause the building to be evacuated, and they emphasized that that had never happened (I guess they'll have to change that language now). I can't remember if they said anything about medical emergencies, but they did emphasize that the test would not stop for any reason. A friend from law school whom I took the test with (in February, the day after a snowstorm) said that because the MBE is published only twice a year all states have to administer it on the same day to prevent the answers from getting out. Even beyond that, there are logistics concerns that make it really inconvenient to postpone anything, and there's a need to reassure students who have been stressing out about the test for months that things aren't going to be delayed and the test will proceed as normal regardless of what happens.

So you have proctors who are given very strict instructions, with no one from the Board of Bar Examiners present with the authority to grant exceptions, and you get situations like this. It seems like the proctors weren't given adequate training in how to respond and they doggedly stuck to the rules. To be fair, I don't know if yelling was the best response on the part of the students; I think a more appropriate instruction would be to quietly inform a proctor, with the main guy making a general announcement that there has been a medical emergency and EMS has been called. It said in the Reddit comments that Connecticut and Florida kept EMS on hand to deal with these situations, which seems like a good idea. Also, there was some mention of students deliberately not helping because they were worried about the test. Fuck that, if someone is going to die, having to retake it in six months isn't the end of the world.

While we're on the subject of bar exams, I had an idea when I took it called the Mount Everest of Lays. There may be more difficult situations to get laid in, but I haven't though of one that has the same combination of a necessarily limited time frame, situational inappropriateness (without being too inappropriate), and theoretical availability of women. The idea is getting laid on the evening between the two days of the bar exam with someone you met at the bar exam. The strategy would be to finish early, then hang around the room where they let you keep your stuff, waiting for an attractive member of the opposite sex to come in. You'd have an instant entree for conversing with a stranger, seeing as you both finished early. Then you'd see if she wants to go to lunch, or grab a drink, depending on whether it's the morning or afternoon session. Lunch would be ideal, because it's low-commitment and would allow you to establish a rapport before you asked her out for drinks later. Either way, after the first day of the exam you ask her for dinner and/or drinks and try to make your move.

It goes without saying that most people are incredibly stressed by the bar exam and invest a lot of time into studying for it. But it's also true that pretty much anyone who knows about prepping for it will tell you that you're better off not studying the night before the test, because after studying for two months you need to relax and not get too stressed. You can use this to your advantage since she might not have anyone in town to hang out with and distract her, and you can press the fact that she needs to relax all the way into bed. I will concede that this is an exceptionally low-probability play, but the theoretical framework is there. When I took the bar exam I finished early both sessions but didn't get the opportunity to hit on anyone. That's how I imagine it would go for most people.

Another fun bar exam story: One of the guys I was sitting next to was a little older and obviously neurotic. The rules specify what you're allowed to bring in with you and he had exactly everything you're allowed to bring in with you, including a plastic baggie filled with Certs or something like that. I rightly assumed that this guy was a bit more anxious than the average test-taker. Shortly into the exam, he consumed one of the Certs by biting it in half. I chuckled at the thought of quietly asking him to knock it off since it was keeping me from focusing on the test, which was guaranteed to make this guy feel somewhat ashamed for his minor breach of etiquette. A few minutes later, I noticed something else.

The Pennsylvania Bar Exam includes a practical component where you're given materials and asked to draft something—a brief, a motion, etc.—based on them. Every test prep service says that component should not be started until all the essay questions are complete, as it's really easy to get lost in the project and use up an inordinate amount of time. I glanced in his direction shortly after the test started and noticed that he immediately started on the practical section. Uh oh. I glance over again periodically to see where he's at with it. Every time he was still working on it. An hour in and he's still working on it. Two hours in and he's still working on it. Finally, with like 45 minutes to go, he finally starts on the first of three essay questions. I finish about ten minutes early and leave. As I'm walking to lunch, I break out laughing at the prospect of having stayed until the end to see how he finished. As I left he was frantically scribbling the beginning of the last essay. I wondered how he'd react if I had said "Man, you started the practical part first. BIG MISTAKE! You're gonna fail, dude.

I mean, seriously, how could a guy who is this neurotic not know that you save the practical part until last. Even starting it first, how could he be that oblivious to time management? Either way, had I actually said that, and made the earlier remark about the Certs, I probably would have put this guy on full tilt for the rest of the exam, and would have risked him having a heart attack and I probably would have failed myself after taking the time to render aid. Then again, for all I know he's been repeatedly failing the bar for the past fifteen years because he still hasn't figured out that you don't do the practical part first, and I could have tipped him off early and saved him a ton of trouble. Then again, the opportunity to get laid, how ever infinitesimal the chance, is worth more than causing unnecessary anxiety for laughs.

While we're on the subject of bar exams, I had an idea when I took it called the Mount Everest of Lays. There may be more difficult situations to get laid in, but I haven't though of one that has the same combination of a necessarily limited time frame, situational inappropriateness (without being too inappropriate), and theoretical availability of women. The idea is getting laid on the evening between the two days of the bar exam with someone you met at the bar exam.

Entirely different profession, but I almost managed that. I had just given the first of the two exams needed to get licensed as a doctor in the UK. Funnily enough, the same buddy I was supposed to come visit in London was with me, and once it was done, we were both gassed, deeply anxious about the results, and in dire need of a stiff drink.

We set off for a nearby pub, and were just about done discussing and drowning our sorrows when a pair of pretty ladies came up to our table.

They said they'd recognized us from the exam center, and evinced an interest in going out dancing. I can't dance to save my life, but I was several drinks in and willing to give it a go, especially when a pretty woman was asking.

That was a night to remember. I probably danced six hours straight, till maybe 4 am. For once, I wasn't the worst dancer on the floor, as my friend thought standing on the spot and autistically stimming up and down counted. He had a six-pack, so I'm sure it wasn't a deal breaker.

I would have gotten laid, if I hadn't been honest and told them that I was taken while we were riding an elevator up to the clubs. I resigned myself to being a good wingman, but even on the dance club, I'm sure that if I had fewer scruples it would have worked out.

Once even the girls, who absolutely could dance, were done (or the club kicked us out, I don't remember), we caught a cab. Ah, good times. Even if I didn't get laid, the mere optionality had plenty of value in my eyes.

Your story feels like one of my favorite Mr. Bean bits where he has to write a test - down to the material neurosis to the doing the wrong test. I'm sure you've seen it but if not

https://youtube.com/watch?v=inQrHXAgkag?si=mtSKkCLJ1s4PUDAR

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