It is another typical day in the Pacific Northwest. The temperature hovers in the 40s with an occasional dip below freezing. It’s spring here nine months of the year. We don’t get as much rain as people think. Our annual precipitation is about the same as in New York City. The difference is that ours comes in smaller, more frequent doses. When we first moved here, the nine months of cloudy weather bothered me. I have come to like it. For one thing, the sun bothers my eyes. For another, our weather gets much colder in winter or hotter in late spring (we have three months of summer sun each year) when the clouds dissipate. We are very far north, farther than northern Maine. The only reason we have such mild winters is that the Pacific Ocean and our insulating cloud cover keep us warm.
We haven’t been active. Monday night, there was no sexual activity. I figured that Mrs. Lion was concerned about her Tuesday meeting in Seattle. Whatever the reason, we watched TV and went to sleep. In her post yesterday (“Spankardy“), she promised to revive Spankardy. We tried various rules for the game over the last few years. I’m not sure that we found the right set yet. I’ll offer a suggestion to get us started again.
The reason it’s hard to work this out is that there are a few different options/opportunities during play:
- Answer a question correctly
- Answer incorrectly
- Don’t answer at all
- Daily double bet
- Final Jeopardy
Those are the possibilities during the game. Mrs. Lion likes to deliver all of the swats after the show is over. To help her keep track of swats during the game, she has a counter that can add and subtract. Initially, I only got swats for missing questions. I could avoid being spanked by staying silent. We tried various ways to fix that. None were great. Here’s my newest suggestion:
- Answer a question correctly -1 swat
- Answer a question incorrectly +10 swats
- Don’t answer at all +3 swats
- Daily double bet Can bet up to all swats earned so far. Get it wrong, double the bet added to the previous total. Get it right, subtract the bet from the total.
- Final Jeopardy Must bet at least 1/2 total. Get it right, subtract from total. Get it wrong, double bet added to total.
We can make the game more “exciting” by doubling the values for right, wrong, and skipped questions during Double Jeapordy.
This may seem too complicated for playtime. I don’t think it is if Mrs. Lion keeps a cheat sheet. I may be sorry I suggested this. There are a total of sixty questions before Final Jeopardy. If I don’t answer any, I would get ninety swats in the first round and 180 during Double Jeopardy. That would put me at 270 for the Final. If I bet the minimum (135) during Final and got it wrong, I would be at 540 swats for the game. It’s good to know trivia around here.
