How unoriginal and uninspired. Writing about my summer vacation is akin to writing a novel the size of War and Peace about paint drying. My summer was boring and uneventful. That's why I bothered showing up again: Because the alternative was prolonging my boredom... and, y'know, working at Burger King for the rest of my life.

I actually had to rally my English class into protesting against this one last year because we've all had it so many times. Fortunately, my teacher realized the paradox of expecting a creative response to an uncreative, cookie-cutter essay prompt and gave our class an original one.

If you ever get this one on a standardized test (such as FCAT in Florida), the best way to deal with this is to choose one of the following:

• A teacher-- in the case of the FCAT writing tests, most of the judges are teachers. Optimistically, they might agree with your essay and be more inclined to give it a higher score. Pessimistically, they might get indignant and flunk you.
• "Whoever has to grade all these essays:" My friend Roswell answered this essay prompt by saying he would never want to be the poor bastard who has to sit there and read all of those horrible essays and he almost got a perfect score.

Of course, if you can think of a more creative way to be spiteful, go with that idea.

As if the emo kids need any more provocation to write a suicide note. Several morons at my school got in trouble last year because their response was to draw a pot-leaf on the essay paper and turn it in. Yawn.

If you really want to stir the pot, memorize the Principal's address and write about skipping school to bang his old lady. Or, if that's not applicable, the Principal's daughter.

If there were possibly a more cliché essay prompt, I've yet to encounter it. If and when you encounter this, you may be tempted to write, "You know what I want to be when I grow up? The guy who destroys the world. First I want to sink France, nuke the middle east, and burn Asia to the ground. Africa will be a thing of the past and the polar ice caps? Vaporized. Now, give me an essay topic that you spent more than ten seconds on the shitter thinking about, bitch!"

While we both agree that would be awesome, the authorities won't. Nor will they enjoy any mention of the Holocaust.