Dan Jenkins' Lists

Mankind's 10 Stages of Drunkenness, one of the most essential lists I've ever come across. Here it is, copyrighted by Mr. Jenkins, of course:

Witty and Charming
Rich and Powerful
Benevolent
Clairvoyant
Fuck Dinner
Patriotic
Crank up the Enola Gay
Witty and Charming, Part II
Invisible
Bulletproof

If I didn't keep liking people and lending them Baja, Oklahoma, I could quote the lovely story in which this list is related. http://fareastcynic.blogspot.com/2005/06/10-stages-of-drunkenness.html lists them a bit differently but in a style that calls Dan Jenkins to mind.

But there's another list that three Jenkins characters — Billy Clyde Puckett, Shake Tiller and Barbara Jane Bookman, in Semi-Tough — came up with. I couldn't find it to link to,  so I had to hand-copy it out of the Google book. This is, to say the least, an interesting look into some Southern men's minds. Once again, quoting from Semi-Tough, (C) Dan Jenkins, American:

            "A long time ago, way back in college at TCU, me and Shake and Barbara Jane to a certain extent had worked up this rating system for girls, or wool.

            "Mostly, it was Shake’s terminology and we had never forgotten it.

            "Anything below ten was a Running Sore. That was something that only a Bubba Littleton or a T.J. Lambert would fool around with, but of course either one of them would diddle an alligator if somebody drained the pond.

            "From the bottom up, our rating system went like this:

            "A Ten was a Healing Scab. Had a bad complexion, maybe, but was hung and could turn into some kind of barracuda in the rack.

            "A Nine was a Head Cold. Good-looking but sort of proper and didn’t know anything at all about what a man liked.

            "An Eight was a Young Dose of the Clap, but pretty in a dimestore kind of way, and not bad for an hour.

            "A Seven was just rich.

            "A Six was a Stove or a Stovette. A Stove was over thirty and preferably married. A Stovette was just under thirty, divorced, talked filthy, and tried to make up for all the studs she never got to eat because she got married so young.

            "A Five was a Dirty Leg. She wore lots of cheap wigs, waited tables or hopped cars, was truly hung, might chew gum, posed for pictures, and got most of her fun in groups.

            "A Four was a Homecoming Queen or a Sophomore Favorite and a hard-hitting dumbass. Fours married insurance salesmen and got fat and later in life stayed sick a lot.

            "A Three was a Semi, which a Texan pronounces sem-eye. You had to beware of Semis because you might marry them in a weak minute. Threes had it all put together in looks and style and sophistication. They could drink a lot and dance good and hang out and make conversation.

            "A Two was a Her. With a capital. If a Semi was tough, a Her was tougher. You might marry the same Her twice. Or three times. Barbara Jane was a Her, or a Two.

            "And there just had never been a One. Ever."