Duke students manage the chaos in their lives by making lists. As Type A perfectionists hopped up on diet Red Bull and bin candy, survival depends on organizational compartmentalization and the ability to derive feelings of success from accomplishing menial tasks. Case in point: Upon arrival at Duke, incoming freshmen are informed that the essence of their collegiate career can be broken down into four prerequisites: driving the East Campus circle in the wrong direction, climbing Baldwin Auditorium, boning in the library stacks and sexual relations in the Duke Gardens.
I’m not sure who first introduced this benign to-do list, but I imagine it was someone who didn’t get out much and enjoyed the thrill of disobeying basic traffic laws. In response, I’d like to introduce a new bucket list of promiscuity to welcome the Class of 2014.
Make-out with a random stranger on the Shooters dance floor. This interaction forms the basic behavioral unit of Duke’s sexual algorithm. The act is as inherently Duke as excessive food point splurges and faux-Gothic architecture. It’s almost too embarrassingly cliché to discuss, despite its prevalence in most Sunday morning conversation. When a Shooter’s DFM is coupled with any other act of poor decision-making, however, it magnifies the impact of earlier debauchery like an elegant punctuation mark. Fighting cops, stealing farm animals or drinking Four Loko all make for interesting stories. One of these FOLLOWED by hooking up on the Shooters dance floor creates legendary stories.
Walk in on your roommate in a compromising position. When they’re alone. Watching Anime porn.
Have sex and then head straight for McDonald’s to enjoy the breakfast-dinner hybrid menu. Double credit for the Cook-Out drive-in, especially if you walk there.
Make friends with a Durham cab driver. Chances are he’s going to have a front row seat to your romantic life.
Discover the mythical and elusive man whose size requires the use of Magnum-brand condoms. The word “mythical” should be read with a cynical inflection. During my formative elementary school years, my classmates and I were exposed to a sex education instructor who uniformly loved animal print and fellatio, and she managed to imprint the fact that a standard condom is large enough to fit over your entire head. I’m not exactly sure what my spandex-clad teacher intended for us to gain from this particular statement, besides an awkward party trick. In my case, I was forever baffled by the existence of extra-large condoms given the ample room afforded by their smaller counterparts, and I grew dogmatic in my belief that these brands were marketed to profit off the male population’s tender egos. Therefore, I challenge you to nail such a beast and prove that the Magnum condom is not a latex industry hoax.
Draw a dick on every whiteboard in your East dorm without getting explicitly caught.
Go four years WITHOUT having sex in K-ville. Seriously, just don’t do it.
Collect the following: oversized t-shirts that don’t belong to you, Facebook pictures that will one day make you unemployable, bar tabs that you regret in the morning and phone contacts with no last name.
Keep adding to the list. Unlike all the other pages of unchecked boxes in your life, this one is probably best left uncompleted.
Brooke Hartley is a Trinity senior. Her column will run every other Thursday.
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