The Get Down Countdown

More thoughts on my 25 year college reunion:

I was in a crazy senior dorm in college, Pearsons Annex. There were 13 of us in the most desirable dorm on campus. I had a conversation this evening with Jan "Scoop" Snyder about our escapades.

My favorite Pearsons Annex activity:

At the end of our weekly dorm meetings we would review (drum roll please) The Get Down Countdown.

The Get Down Countdown was a scoring system for our sex lives. Here's how it worked:

Making out: 1 point
Home plate: 3 points 1 scratch mark plus a solid black box
Somewhere between first and home: 2 points (scratch mark plus a dashed black box)
Too intoxicated to recall specifics: 2 points (scratch mark plus a dashed line black box and question mark)
Amherst: purple points
Dartmouth: green points
Harvard: crimson points
All others: black points

A maximum of 9 points could be earned per sex partner, per person, so monogamous competitors couldn't win the game by having regular sex with their longterm boyfriend, but they could get on the board.

We had our own term for sex. The traditional male oriented terms such as nailing, banging, screwing were anathema to us, so we preferred "strapping", i.e. strapping one's legs around a hot dude. Our favorite comment when overworked: "I'd rather be drunk and strapping."

We had sexy code names to protect our identity in case someone found the chart. Mine, since I was a bike racer was "Pump."

I can't say I ever strapped anyone simply to raise my ranking, my score was just an honest reflection of what I was doing anyway.

I jumped to an early lead in September which held until the end of the fall semester by doing the following:

1) flying in my Marine Corps boyfriend for the first weekend: 9 points but only black points
2) reuniting with my freshman year boyfriend from Amherst: 9 purple points
3) finally strapping that crew guy from Harvard who drove me nuts emotionally all year and for several years afterwards. I got an A in poetry writing second semester because of the torture: 9 crimson points

Unfortunately, and unknown to me at the time I was already maxed for the year, and fell in the category of monogamous also-rans, even though I had 3 going simultaneously. I was way too busy juggling 3 guys, premed, rowing and cycling to put any effort into one-nighters. Even the townie lumberjack from Junior year got the cold shoulder.

I thought I was in good shape but I was overtaken by a competitor who got drunk at a Christmas party and made out with 8 guys. We argued vociferously but witnesses at the party verified that these were all slutty kisses.

After the winter break, the competition became way out of my league. The other girls had a taste for Dartmouth flavor, and we had to implement the dashed line connecting duplicated partners among different competitors.

One girl had a 3 way on acid in a Winnebago in March. No way could I compete with that. Drunk and strapping was one thing, but I could never emotionally handle mixing drugs and sex. If I was going to an Amherst art party for the evening, I would disable (leave my diaphragm at home).

It became a tangled web as the year progressed, and I was left in the dust. I finished in the middle of the pack.

xxoo

Pump