Final Exam

The other night, my sister Parisa called me on her way home from class. "Tonight I found out our teacher gave us a take home test last week on the day I left early. So I didn't have it done."

I wondered if she wanted me to commiserate with her as a friend or flog her as a parent. I settled for something in between. "Can you turn it in later?"

"She told me I could turn it in at the final next week. Except I freaked out, because I had no idea we had a final."

I grinned. She always sounded so cavalier about her schoolwork. Really, she's a great student. You don't get into grad school by fooling around, and she's in a special publishing program to boot. "Is that going to be a problem?"

"Nope," she replied blithely. "The final is watching this guy in my class get a tattoo."

"Wait a second." I frowned, sure I heard wrong. "I thought you said your final is watching a classmate get a tattoo."

"Yeah. Remember the book I told you we're publishing? The collection of nonfiction essays that this tattoo artist wrote about his parlor and clients?"

"Of course." One of the stories from the collection still haunted me—the one about a guy who went in asking to get a banner with a woman's name, social security number, and a date tattooed on his chest. It wasn't until the guy turned around to put his shirt back on that the tattoo artist noticed the guy's back, which was completely covered in banners. And all of them had dates and different women's names and social security numbers. Creepy.

"Well, one of the guys in the program decided to get a tattoo from that artist and we're all going to watch."

"That's your final?" My voice reeked with incredulity.

"Yeah." She laughed. "I love grad school."