Sunday, September 14, 2008

darts

Last night I went to a birthday party. I was so not in the mood. I even considered calling in "sick" - I did feel a bit feverish but I think that was just because it was so hot out. The party was for my coworker Barkley, and I knew it was going to mostly be her friends from college, and making conversation in a noisy bar is one of my least favorite things in the world. But I like Barkley, and I'd RSVP'd yes, and you never know, I could suddenly decide I like bars, noise, and strangers.

It turned out to be awesome! Someone else I work with was there with a friend of hers, and she suggested darts. Turns out, none of the three of us who were playing knew how to keep score. In the beginning, we weren't even all that good at hitting the board. So we came up with our own scoring, which I will record here because I think it's funny.

Hit the wall: 1 point.
Hit the board: 2 points. (There are three darts, so by far the most common score was 6.)
Hit the red middle of the bullseye: 1500.

At some point one of the guys playing on the middle board explained the scoring, and we smiled and nodded and had no idea what he was talking about.

We kept adding rules as we thought of them. (Ok, it was mostly me.)
Green outer part of the bullseye: 500.
Red elsewhere on the board: 100.
Green elsewhere on the board: 50.
Two of your darts end up touching: double your score.
Hit one of the letters on the board: its value in Scrabble.
Hit inside a closed loop of one of the numbers: the value of the number.
Get a dart to stick straight up in the floor: 5.
Hit outside the metal circle but still on the board: 10.

It's possible that this is the most fun I've ever had in a bar. When I left home I told myself I only had to go for an hour and I'd make it home in time for Saturday Night Live. I got there at 8:45 and didn't leave til after 11:30. (So I had to watch this online today.)

Also: There were cupcakes.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's amazing to me that you've never played darts before (or "darted" as we darters like to say), yet played *exactly* according to McGovern's 1974 Mid-Pacific Revised bylaws. Are you sure you didn't read his pamphlet years ago - maybe at YAM - and keep it in your subconcious?

Anonymous said...

Cupcakes. Definitely key to a good time.

Let's just point once and for all that you have fun where ever you go. Such a beautiful talent.

Almost as fabulous as Tina Fey's for impersonating Sarah Palin.

Anonymous said...

You and the Mr. have so much in common! He loves darts. His dad even played darts in a league. One of the basement walls of the house in which he grew up still is covered in shag carpeting because it was used for dart practice. I'm not sure if you should make that kind of aesthetic statement in your apartment yet, but I'm glad you had fun!

towwas said...

J.Bro - I'm pretty sure it was divine inspiration.

S.Moff - Well, I tend to only blog about the fun stuff, but yeah, more or less, I suppose. :) I try.

LDP - Can he tell us how to keep score? And how to aim? We were all pretty hopeless.

Anonymous said...

Yea, he's up with the scoring methodology. Your other system sounded pretty cool, though, so I'm not sure if you want to adopt the 'real' method.