the great part about finishing a midterm in forty of the allotted ninety minutes is that you have plenty of time to sit and stare into space, waiting for the answer.

the one you know you know, but that you can't find.

the one little word that's lurking back there somewhere and just needs time to find its way out of the murky swamps of your cotton-packed brain to the relative clarity of actual conscious thought.

a word such as "epicycle," for instance.
and it only took fifteen minutes or so.