Top 50 Worst Reasons To Pull An All-Nighter

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College students will occasionally pull an all-nighter and miss a night of sleep. Although the reasons for these sleepless nights are usually academic, sometimes they’re not. Here are some of the worst reasons to pull an all-nighter.

1. Heated “Less-filling” “Tastes great” debate.
2. Need to figure out which way is east. Wait for sunrise.
3. Watching Professional Wrestling.
4. Writing script to “Problem Child 3” in an attempt to put to rest all the unanswered questions from 1 and 2.
5. Cramming for a test you have the following week.
6. Waiting for a friend to call you back with answer to “How do you keep an idiot up all night?”
7. Anything involving Latin, Taylor’s series, or heat transfer.
8. Attempting to discover how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.
9. Slightly confused on that whole 5 o’clock shadow thing.
10. Listening to every CD you own using that cool “intro” feature that comes in so handy with every CD player available.
11. Watching a John Wayne-a-thon
12. Trying to figure out all the words to that Nirvana song.
13. UCBTalking to anyone you won’t ever spend intimate time with. Same goes for IRC and Broadcast.
14. Watering plants. Dead plants. Rocks. Dirt. The cat.
15. Trying to draw a perfect circle freehand, with crayons.
16. Singing along with “Achy Breaky Heart” over and over again. What catchy lyrics that song has, eh?
17. Second-guessing your clock. (Also works well with Traffic Lights, and simply anything that blinks on and off forever)
18. Driving to every 7-11 (or Circle K) in town, just to check that they are being faithful to their “Open 24 Hours” policies.
19. Trying to figure out why Wil Wheaton is a TV star.
20. Pricking yourself with a pin every 5 minutes, just for the heck of it.
21. Spinning round and round in circles until you get so dizzy you hurl. Repeat in opposite direction. Figure out which way makes you blow chunks faster. Try to keep spinning while heaving.
22. Coming up with as many colorful euphemisms for the term “vomit” as possible. (e.g. spew, yak, ralph, etc…)
23. Reading all the articles in your college newspaper to see how relevant they are to today’s economy.
24. Thinking about the ways the world would be different if there was no cement.
25. Spelunking. In your basement.
26. Price shopping for beef jerky at any 24-hour supermarkets.
27. Thinking about that 14-year-old brat who sent in $1000 to President Bill Clinton to help trim the federal deficit, when you just splurged on a Whopper Combo.
28. Pulling out each strand in a Koosh ball. Reassemble the Koosh ball. Repeat. Juggle on occasion.
29. Pretending it is really 12 hours later than it is. (i.e. Going to classes, eating lunch, waiting for the soaps to come on…)
30. Just watching that flashing 12:00 on your VCR because you looked at your other clocks already, and are simply looking for a second opinion.
31. Rearranging your room all night long, attempting to make the WORST setup possible, just to show that you would do such a thing.
32. Learn how to communicate better with the animal kingdom.
33. Trying to figure out how that counter works on a VCR. Once you do figure it out, borrow a friend’s VCR. Repeat until insane.
34. Memorizing all the area codes. (Other good things: local phone prefixes, zip codes, time zones, etc…)
35. Wanting to see cool times on your clock like 1:23, 6:66, 4:56, 00:69, 6:30, etc… (If you actually look for some of these times, you may end up waiting more than all night…)
36. Pulling all your hair out so you can organize it by color, length, thickness, straightness. Continue doing so until they haul you off to the loony bin.
37. Learning how to speak Klingon.
38. Anything that has to do with Star Trek. (especially watching that Deep Space show….)
39. Catching up with all those missed episodes of Coach you taped, so you can follow along with the current, in-depth plot line.
40. Buying large amounts of bubble wrap, popping it ALL, then using it to ship stuff. Breakable stuff.
41. You have a life, yet you spend it reading lists like this.
42. Getting high on Marks-A-Lot markers.
43. Holding yourself hostage, but not telling anyone. Make large demands.
44. Trying to find food combinations that taste terrible.
45. Pondering all the hardships Michael Jackson has gone through in his life. Writing him a sympathy card would be a nice touch.
46. Building a house of cards.
47. Reliving the war. Any war. Maybe a childhood schoolyard fight. Maybe just stubbing your toe on that couch again.
48. Playing with heat-sensitive toys.
49. Writing a letter trying to explain email to your grandparents.
50. Wasting your time writing a “Top 50 list.”

Thanks Jeremy “Shaggy” Toeman (CMU), Michael “Red” Harris, and Taylor (Purdue)