The Techie

The Techie

Charlie considered himself an electronics genius and he had a plan. Midterm finals were scheduled to begin March 1st. He had scanned all the material he needed for his usual cram sessions and meticulously highlighted each critical fact.

Darn computers! he thought as he finished screwing on the case cover. The CPU had mysteriously died on him and he had installed a replacement. Must have over-clocked it, he thought as he hit the on button.

As the monitor came to life, Charlie's panic began to recede. He was several hours behind schedule as he started his final checklist.

"Three cans of Coke," he recited. "Check."

"Caffeine pills." "Check."

In spite of the late start, Charlie continued down his pre-cram checklist. He was not one to leave anything to chance. He had thought of, and listed, everything. Charlie believed in just-in-time studying, waiting until the day before to do a "memory-refresh," as he liked to call it.

He glanced at the small time readout at the corner of his monitor. 11:45PM was displayed in pale white numbers and letters on the taskbar.

"Time to get going," he muttered as he pulled up the first set of notes. Soon, he was lost in the arcane world of C++ programming.

The chirping of birds finally tore his eyes off the notes. Glancing out the window, Charlie saw the pale grey of early morning.

"What time is it?" he mumbled. His eyes were tired from the long hours and, as he glanced at the corner of his monitor, the small numbers were blurry.

He double-clicked on the time display, pulling up the Date and Time Property window. 5:59:30 AM was scrolling under the analog display.

Huh?, thought Charlie. Wiping his eyes, he looked a second time.

February 29th was highlighted on the calendar. He had forgotten it was leap year!



Notes

Word Count: 300

An entry for April 24 "Daily Flash Fiction Challenge"  [13+]
Prompt: Write a story about someone who waited until the last minute to study for final tests.

Thank you for taking time to read my words. I would appreciate it if you took a moment and left a comment. Your reaction, impressions, criticisms, - yes, even praise are all equally welcome.

Ken