You know the dream where you show up for the test two hours late and naked...

I just completed the worst exam experience of my life.

Now, I'm no spring chicken. I've been through a lot of exams. Lots. Many, many. Gobs.

Nothing like this.

This was my first, and perhaps my last (!), online exam.

I'd gotten nothing but positive feedback all semester from my online instructor and online classmates. Still, I studied just to be on the safe side.

It was a multiple choice exam.

Multiple choice! you cry, What could be easier?

That's what I thought.

85 questions in 85 minutes, with a timer going as soon as you hit go.

The questions were of this kind of format:

You walk down the avenue. You hear a melody in the distance. You see a blue bird. Do you:

a) admire the blue bird

b) consider Thomas Jefferson's role in history

c) link the rise of the combustion engine to current economic theory and the reduction of brown birds

d) toaster

WTF??

Okay, I'm pretty sure toaster is wrong. But I could theoretically do any of the other three and maybe do a jig, too, to that catchy melody I'm hearing and I don't freakin' know why I'm seeing a blue bird to begin with because there's no genuine context given in the question! Maybe if I read it again... nope, still makes no sense.

Now multiply that by 85.

Now, just for fun, throw in technical difficulties.

For approximately 25 of the 85 questions, when I hit the submit key, it gives me an error message whose only option is an "Okay" button. "Okay"??! No, it's not okay! You didn't save my answer and the freakin' clock is ticking! Eventually, it doesn't even allow me that much interaction as it switches to an "already working this request" message but never actually saves my answers!!

Dammit.

I should have picked toaster because I think I'm toast.