It really was not a pleasant dream.

I have had a lot of school dreams – most of them unpleasant. Last night’s was one of the worst.

Law school. Time for “final exams” after, I think, one year of study. You needed to take the finals in order to begin the second year of study, and it seems (in the dream) that there had been some time between the end of the first year’s classes and the finals. I had come back to my school for the finals – a special trip. I was staying in a room or suite with a married couple; I was there alone. I don’t know who they were, except we were all taking the finals.

We had only been there a few days when I innocently asked when we were going to find out the exam schedule. They looked at me strangely and said they were surprised I didn’t know. Didn’t you get your schedule yesterday? No, I said, I didn’t get anything. Then, they showed me that they each got a plate sent to our door the day before. Each plate had a piece of paper with their exam schedule, and three cupcakes.

I thought mine got misplaced, so I telephoned (land line, rotary dial) the law school office and told them that I hadn’t received the schedule, and I was shunted to three different people. The last one, a man, asked if I wanted to talk to the dean (he mentioned him/her by name – I knew that was the dean). I said that I didn’t need to if he could assist me. He then said a bunch of words that made no sense, so I hung up a bit confused.

The next day (I think it was the next day), my roommates knew what they were doing, but I had no idea. They then showed me a piece of paper that had the day’s schedule on it. I had not seen that, either. They pointed out that the first thing was a meeting of the entire class, so I went with them.

The meeting was held in a very large classroom. There were three or four people on the stage in front, like a panel. One man controlled the agenda. He called classmates up one by one. I didn’t pay a lot of attention. It seemed like preliminary stuff. Then he called my name.

I went up to the front and he said (loud enough for everyone to hear): “Art, I hear you are a very good student and have done very well in class.” I nodded a thank you, but there was something in his voice that I didn’t like. He went on. Handing me a piece of paper with a long list of things on it, he said “These are the class assignments over the year that you didn’t hand in. There are about thirty of them. If it was only one or two, or three, we would ignore it, and you would take the exams. But we can’t let you take the final exams with all of these assignments outstanding. Now, I know you are 26 years old, and [mumbled words]. When you come back next year, you can enroll in my second year class in __________; you don’t have to take that first year class again.” And he dismissed me to go back to my seat, only saying “Leibowitz, the same goes for you,” and a student in the first row got up and rushed out of the room.

I was really taken aback. I assumed that I had not handed in the assignments; I had been pretty lax. But no one told me that taking the finals depended on this, or that I shouldn’t bother to come halfway across the country prepared to take the finals. My first thought was to go back home and complete the missing assignments and ask if I could take the finals at the end of the summer before the start of the second year classes. But, looking at the list of missing assignments, I couldn’t tell what the assignments were, only that they weren’t handed in. I didn’t want my three year law school program to extend into four years. That was too much time, and cost too much.

I decided to pack up and go home. My car (which was the 1967 yellow and black Pontiac Firebird I once owned) was not far away, and I hoped everything would fit in it. I was still stunned, very embarrassed and needed time to get away and think. What next?

(For those who want to know, I did my law school training in the normal 3 years, I always knew where my classes were (even if I had to admit missing a large number of them), and I never failed to hand in an assignment.)