We're All Mad Here

William had an idea, and what an idea it was.

As it turned out. It was the worst idea in his long unlife.

“I miss playing the guitar!” he told me. “Why don’t we make a family band?”

“I studied a bit of piano… at some point. I don’t rememeber when,” I said. “I could give it a try.”

Franklin decided to bang on the drums, and Gideon picked up the bass. We sounded awful, but not as awful as I thought we would! This felt pretty good!

“Hey Mom!” Gideon called. “You suck!”

That’s my boy. “You should listen to yourself!” I called back.

Then, of course, I got a phone call. It was a case.

“I have to go investigate an international black market fruit ring,” I told the family. “Don’t have too much fun without me.”

I have contacts in dark places. I happened to know the name of the local fence in stolen apples. I arranged a clandestine meeting with her.

I left William in the basement, jamming with the kids. I was sure they were having a good time. I just hoped he had the good sense to take care of the important things.

He’d never get so absorbed in his music that he forgot basic necessities, would he?

Or let the kids distract him from something important?

William’s a responsible guy.

He could handle himself. And the kids.

He’d done so dozens of times before.

Why did I have such a bad feeling about this?

Yeah.

The kids told me all about it later. How Helen sobbed for her father as badly as she did the broken dishwasher.

How all the kitties showed up

to bid farewell to their favorite playmate.

How William’s spirit threw himself to the floor to beg the Grim Reaper for more time with his family.

I’ve never seen William grovel for anything, so I’ll take that as a compliment. Maybe what he really wanted was one last woohoo.

At least Justin was spared the trauma. He slept through the whole thing.

Imogen was hanging out in the basement.

She headed to school without knowing she was the last person ever to talk to William, and it had been about the fight scene in “Asskicker League Issue #26.”

Grim’s kind of a cat person himself. After he rained despair and death on my household, he hung around to play with Mikhail.

And that’s how I found him when I got home from bringing the produce thieves to justice.

I’m going to skip the conversation I had with Grim. I’d just lost the best woohoo of my life. I’m not responsible for what I said.

I found Helen hanging out in the bathroom.

“Why are you not in school?” I demanded.

“Mom! Dad just died in front of me!”

“That’s no excuse! Get to school or your grounded!”

I escorted Helen to the door.

And made sure she headed to school.

And found Franklin hanging out by the door. I read him the same riot act. “Our personal tragedy is no excuse for skipping school!”

“But Mom! I really have to pee!”

“You should have thought of that earlier!”

Then I stopped yelling. I had an uncontrollable urge to catch raindrops on my tongue.

Franklin took the chance to grab his broken umbrella and dash out to school.

He was exhausted and desperate to pee, but he managed to make it school without embarrassing himself.

Then the house was silent, except for the toddler howling in his crib upstairs. Numbly, I took him out of bed and set him down on the floor to play.

He had no idea there was anything wrong.

Then I headed downstairs to drown my sorrows in a plate of waffles.

“What am I going to do without him?” I asked Bungle in despair. “No more painting at all hours.”

“No more hard pecs and firm sixpack against me…”

“Are you going to get around to fixing the dishwasher?” Bungle asked.

“I think you’re missing the big picture here!” I cried. “I’m a widow!”

“No you’re not, technically speaking,” Bungle pointed out. “You already divorced him.”

“I was hormonal,” I retorted. “I didn’t mean it. We were going to get remarried.”

I couldn’t bring myself to take down William’s easel yet.

 

Maybe his spirit would someday come to finish his painting.

———-

Untimely Deaths: 0 + 1 = 1

So, that happened.

When I saw it coming, I had to talk myself out of shutting down the game and loading from my last save. This is, after all, the great WTF of playing an idiot challenge.

William was within throwing distance of getting a Master of the Arts LTW. All I had to do was get him to play the guitar a bit more. I saw Somebodysangel of the Young Reverse ISBI get her idiots to play instruments by jamming with them and then canceling out to do other things. When William rolled the wish to jam with Erin, I thought it was a great idea. Erin even had a piano skill point lying around — maybe from playing xylophone as a toddler? Then I thought, “Hey! What about a family band?” So I got them all in on the action.

Then, for some reason only The Sims knows, William didn’t drop his queue when he got to a -40 thirst moodlet. He didn’t start complaining about thirst until he’d been sitting on the emergency -80 moodlet for a while. And even then, he might have made it to the fridge if Imogen hadn’t desperately needed to talk about comic books RIGHT THEN.

Erin was off the lot the whole time. She couldn’t help at all. He was the definitive ISBI victim.

Clearly, the Madly Thirsty moodlet didn’t actually last 24 sim-hours. I’m not sure what was up with the label. Everyone came home from Love Day using the Moodlet Mobile, so they had full needs in the middle of the night. I think they started jamming sometime after midnight. Erin headed back home from her case when it became clear that disaster was imminent, but she didn’t make it home in time. She arrived around 10AM, thus all the scolding for missing school. The time between the start of the jam and William’s death couldn’t have been more than 8 sim-hours. Maybe the moodlet was mislabeled because due to some kind of calculation glitch from William’s extended vampire lifespan? If I’d realized just how little time he had left, I’d’ve sent Erin home earlier.

Franklin did manage to make it to school without passing out or peeing himself, even with the scolding delay. I don’t think he even passed out on the way home, which is remarkable.

Goodbye, William. You were a truly awesome idiot spouse. Your great genes will live on.