Like most Americans, I took the SAT exam in high school. Twice. This was the mid 1980s and I had done respectably well on the first round, not record-setting but fine, and the second round I did about the same. My scores were decent, and I got into all the colleges I applied for.

I appreciate the irony of being a writer now and avoiding any college application that involved an essay. Sorry, BU. (Boston University)

Also amusing to me, my daughter got her Master’s from BU.

And strange to me, this is the first time I’ve ever typed that I’m a writer. Not a wannabe writer. Aspiring writer. Novice writer. Just a writer.

Back to the SATs.

I don’t know how much they change the exam from year to year, but I’m sure it’s similar between one year and the next. I didn’t specifically study for the exams. Which is weird, thinking about it now since I normally crammed the night before for exams. I didn’t take any SAT classes. Did they have those in the 80s? I don’t remember my teachers discussing strategies for the exam. The exams, my preparation and my scores were the same.

Yet both experiences were vastly different.

It must have been Spring of Junior year, 1984. My friend and I were getting a ride together, and we wanted to go out to breakfast before going to school. We both had part time jobs and wanted to treat ourselves. My father was the designated driver that morning. He didn’t really ever drive any of the kids around or do anything with the kids if he could avoid it and he wasn’t pleased about picking us up. He didn’t want to have stop somewhere and get us. If he had to be up and driving, he just want us to all get in the car together and go. We were only going to Burger King. It was an easy walk from my house and he’d be driving that way to take us to school. He wasn’t going out of his way, but he was still irritated.

My friend lived a short walk away, so we met up and walked down Main Street, ten or fifteen minutes, looking forward to a special breakfast. Most breakfasts at home were cereal and milk and it was a treat to go out to eat at anytime, even fast food. We arrived only to find Burger King was closed at 6:00a.m. on a Saturday morning. Disappointed, we knew there was no time to walk back to the house to get food. And suddenly there was my father, honking for us to get in the wagon and he was not about to go to a drive-thru somewhere else to get us a bite to eat.

So I took those SATs miserable. My father was irritated with me. I was up earlier than I needed to be, with no reward for my sacrifice, which any teen will tell you that getting up early on a Saturday morning is a huge sacrifice. I was hungry and thirsty and out of luck.

Definitely a learning experience.

Senior year, I took the SAT’s again. I don’t know why because I had acceptances and had committed to a school. But I was told to take them again, probably by the guidance counselor, and being a good rule follower, I did.

This SAT experience was so very different. First, I had a school lined up, so the pressure was off to begin with. (Why, oh why, did I have to sit that second exam?) I didn’t get up any earlier than necessary. I ate breakfast at home. I didn’t meet up with my friend. (We weren’t friends anymore.) My mother drove me to school and I’m sure we chatted the entire ride. She was probably thrilled about getting out of the house without the baby and looking forward to some time alone on the drive back home. (My third brother was a little over a year old at that point and my first sister would arrive in a few months.)

I remember it being a sunny day and I choose a place in the cafeteria near the windows and far away from the main doors. I had a table to myself, because no one walked to the other end of the cafeteria.

I plopped my hobo bag on the seat next to me, got out my number 2 pencils and then the best part, I brought out a big bag of M&M’s and covered it with my purse. And this little thing, this minor act of defiance, made me happy for the entire exam.

Did I really get away with munching on M&M’s during SAT’s? I don’t know. No one said anything to me. I’m sure the teachers monitoring the exam didn’t bother with me. I never caused trouble. Never. I’m sure they ignored me the entire time. But I thought I got away with something.

I nibbled my booty of forbidden candy, enjoyed the sun on my back and completely colored in my little circles with number 2 pencil. And I was happy.

One year, miserable SAT. Next year, happy SAT.

I’m not sure why this memory popped into my consciousness today. I’ve been reading Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and changes in perception is a theme in the story. My SATs is one of the most obvious examples in my life of how my thinking changed my perception of an event.

So I guess there’s a lesson or moral in this story. If you’re going to do it, you may as well enjoy it? Take a minor risk, it’s fun? Is the way you think about something more important that the thing itself? The way you think about your life is how you experience it?

Perhaps it’s something that we need to figure out for ourselves. How we want to perceive our life. That the lens is just as important as the events. That life is going to happen, so you may as well make the best of it.

I hope you all are making the best of your life.