And Now for Something Completely Juvenile.
Bea is home with an ear infection and sore throat. I'm home with Bea. After I write this, I'm going to fold laundry and string my autoharp.
If you can't tell by all the post-publishing edits and countless typos, I tend to blog while I should be doing something else. Like actual work for which I get paid to do. But today I'm sitting in front of the computer with idle hands, I surf unfettered by the fear of being caught. Apparently it's true what they say about the devil and idle hands. Here's today's trivial gem.
Anyone who went to college in the 80's and early 90's might remember The Purity Test. Maybe you saw it at a party, or one of your friends got it from one of their friends at another college, possibly printed on dot matrix printer (mid-late 80's). When I first got one in 1988, it had 100 questions. Some time after that, someone got the newest (for the time) 400 question test from a friend at one of the U. California campuses via VAX mail. Over time it morphed into a 500 question test. In the first part of my college experience (1988-90) I scored about 78% on the 100 and 400 question tests. I think it was the partying, because it certainly wasn't sex. In the early 90's, before I returned to college and I lived the life of a free-spirited hippie club kid, I was romantically involved with someone who brought down my score where it plateaued in the 60's for several years. I remember he scored between 30 and 35%. Those were crazy times.
I think the last time I took it was in 1999 or something like that, long after I was out of college, and my score hadn't changed that much. I think I scored in the low to mid 50's, maybe high 50's? I can't remember. But now, I've hit my lowest score ever: 50%. I'm not sure what I've done in 6 years to bring it down. Maybe I cheated last time.
Laundry, here I come.
2 comments:
You know, even when I came across the Purity Test at 17 at summer camp ("Jewish Leadership Camp"), the assumption in the name really bothered me. "Holding hands" reduces your purity? I mean, it's cute to be able to score yourself on these things, to kow your experience relative to your fellow teenagers, but it seems like, given a decent context (exploration, love, friendship) refraining from these things would violate the relationship.
If I recall, at the time, I scored 60-something.
Joshua, your scoring a 60 something in high school makes me feel like a total prude in college. But I think that's the point of the test.
I come from a religious tradition where holding hands with a member of the opposite sex who is not related to you would constitute reducing your "purity level". My dad wasn't that strict, but I knew families who were.
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