More Unexpected Events

Hey, everyone, and welcome back once more to the abundant watering hole of simness that is Monkeesims. Everything I touch at the moment winds up smelling like coffee, because someone added water to the coffee maker this morning here, and it pumps water into the machine itself, so there was coffee everywhere. And I helped mop it up with paper towels. Didn't go too well, so basically everything is saturated with coffee now, and I think someone gave me a mug full of the diluted stuff with double the water, and it's not keeping me awake. Should be an interesting morning (if there is such a thing here at my job).

Yesterday, you were subjected to the first of my sims' attempts at business ownership as Amy Andrews tried to get Andrews Radio Shock off the ground. Didn't go so well at first, but things were starting to look up when we left (guess some day I might read one of those instruction manual thingies and see if it helps). The most amazing thing that came from the business was the fact that Katrina and Mia Kay Wilson actually wound up getting jobs after resisting for so long. Granted, their jobs consisted of standing at a cash register for part of the day and wandering around chatting with Amy and the customers for the other part - not exactly the most back breaking labor known to man. It did relieve some of the financial burden from the rest of the family, though. With the extra $500 a day being brought home by Katrina and Mia Kay, Aimee decided she could afford to buy a new outfit - with surprising results...


Aimee: "Hey, wait…I have a belly button?"
Déjà vu? Perhaps. It is funny though that those former plant sims have navels - I guess that joke just never gets old for me (apologies to the rest of you). With the girls off out of the house and actually working, Aimee and Antonio took some time off so they could actually hang out with each other. Aimee finally got a chance to work on her painting, and Antonio got a chance to play poker with himself (don't ask, I don't know). Really, it's not like the family was so broke before that they couldn't take a day off or buy clothes unless Kat and Mia Kay were making money, but you know those responsible types and their weird hang-ups.


I'm not really sure this qualifies as "togetherness time"...
For all the fun that Antonio and Aimee had had since getting engaged and moving in together, she was starting to get a little "Kammy Wilson syndrome". In other words, every other thought of hers had to do with getting married or having a baby, and she's not even a family aspiration sim. Sims in the neighborhood tend to get married at different paces, some quicker than others, and all indications were that while Antonio's proposal was good, he didn't have any plans to wed right away. Given that Antonio is one of those ultra easy going types to begin with, Aimee should have just been thankful he'd proposed at all, or had a job, even if nobody knew what he did for a living.


Aimee: "My gosh! Some pervert is outside the window with a camera!"
Well, despite her thinking about marriage constantly, Aimee was nice enough not to nag Antonio about it for the time being. Everyone was hoping that sooner or later he would close the deal and end all the Amy/Aimee Andrews confusion. Antonio had quite a few other things on his mind at the moment, like his high power career and whether or not he'd ever do something to fix his hair. Another thing that was bugging him was the fact that the old three story house he, Katrina, and Mia Kay originally lived in had a pool, and the new house didn't. There was certainly money to construct one, there just wasn't a whole lot of space on the new property. Antonio eventually broke down and decided he didn't care, and had a pool installed behind the house. Well, not so much a pool as a very small water filled concrete hole in the ground, but you get the idea.


What? No slide and diving board?
The pool was useful for getting wet and swimming around in circles and not too much else. A diving board was omitted due to the risk of jumping entirely OVER the pool, and we won't even discuss how bad an idea a slide would have been. Antonio had his pool, and that was the important thing. J.D. Wilson, Mia Kay's father, decided to drop by and see the ugly house everyone had been complaining about (sure, you haven't heard me say how much I hate the layout lately, but that hasn't changed). Aimee was just getting home with huge news - she'd been promoted to Chief on the medical track. The hours and pay turned out to be pretty good. Sure, it wasn't close to what she'd be making at the top of the sports career track, but it was more than everyone else in the house was making each day with all three of their jobs combined.


Gia: "Here comes the green cat! Make way for the green cat!"
J.D. went out back and took a gander at the new pool, but for some reason, didn't seem terribly impressed (maybe it's because the new Wilson house he lives at has a massive pool out back that actually has room for a diving board and slide). Oh, J.D…you're such a snob. The younger Wilson family usually does a pretty terrible job of entertaining guests, which is why they throw so few parties…they invite people in, then leave them to their own devices and do their own thing the whole time. That is, unless they're inviting people over to hustle them at poker. Those guests get plenty of attention. Antonio wasn't paying too much attention to company at the moment, he was too excited about Aimee's excellent new suit that came with her promotion. Hey, free clothes rule, even I know that.


Antonio: "So, you wanna' play doctor?"
If there's one thing that having gotten jobs taught Katrina and Mia Kay, it was the value of money, and suddenly, the ability to get other people's money without work seemed more appealing than ever. You might think that having actual jobs would eliminate the need for squeezing money out of folks at the poker table, but it didn't. The girls didn't actually make an effort to invite passing strangers inside or get hookups from the gypsy matchmaker, but there was a constant slew of friends being brought home from Antonio and Aimee's jobs, and they were always easy victims. Things had certainly taken an odd turn from the early days of the family's arrival in the neighborhood when Katrina and Mia Kay were focused on going out and having fun and looking for romantic prospects. Of course, after all the fights Kat got into (and lost) those first times, it's no surprise she's probably too terrified to leave the house unless she absolutely has to.


Suit Guy: "Uh, I guess I brought lots of money, why do you ask?"
That's not to say I think every sim in the neighborhood needs to have a romantic interest. Some of them seem perfectly content doing stuff that has nothing to do with the opposite sex. I think Mia Kay is "turned off" by most other sims, and least likely to spend time doing stuff with others if allowed to choose what she wants to do. Aimee and Antonio are the really outgoing sorts who seem to love everyone, while Katrina is somewhere in the middle (though very prone to having little puffs of hearts over her head for most guy sims). The biggest problem with the whole romance thing is just that the neighborhood if full of ugly looking townies, while the population of charming, attractive custom sims has dwindled down to almost nothing. Despite this unfortunate arrangement, Katrina had a little bit of a surprise for everyone…


No, the ugly outfit isn't the surprise...
Yes, it turns out Katrina was pregnant. She'd managed to get away with not throwing up in the days leading up having to wear the ugly maternity clothes, but the appearance of the bulge and the maternity getup was a dead giveaway. Despite the appearance of not having a whole lot of romantic interests, it looked as though Katrina had at least one nobody else in the family knew about. However, she wasn't talking about who the father was (and in case you're curious, there IS a father, it's not a "cheat baby"). Everyone started going over the list of eligible bachelors in town, trying to guess who it was, but when names like Jimmy Jones and Homie D. Klown started popping up, the discussion was quickly halted...


Katrina: "Look! Mia Kay changed her hair! Let's talk about that instead!"
Katrina hadn't really dated anyone for any length of time that the rest of the family knew about. There had been Elrond Hartman, who she hooked up with shortly after her disastrous date with Andrew Pearson, but nobody had seen him around in ages, aside from his time working at Andrews Radio Shock (which happened to be where Katrina worked too, but there wasn't time for any funny business while they were on the clock). The idea that Katrina might have been abducted popped up, but the fact that the family didn't own a telescope, Katrina never turned up missing, and aliens don't impregnate females seemed to shoot down that idea. It appeared folks would just have to wait and hope the baby resembled it's father if Katrina wasn't going to give up any info. Antonio still had his theories about who he thought the father was…


Katrina: "I know you love Homie D. Klown, but he's not the father!"
Eventually, everyone got used to seeing Katrina with a bulge, and decided to let the whole probing her for info thing go. She'd decided she didn't want to give up the baby's father's name, and it seemed that wasn't going to change. The good thing that came from all of this was that Katrina didn't have to go to work until the baby was born. Of course, she'd only been working her new job for a couple of days before all this happened, so it's not like she was overworked and needed the break. She did spend most of her time at the poker table while she was at home, though, so the poker money would still be rolling in. Antonio, Aimee, and Mia Kay all wound up getting a day off at the same time, and decided to celebrate by buying lots of easels and painting together. Not exactly a real group activity, but a nice effort nonetheless.


Aimee: "Wow, Antonio, you're a regular Bob Ross!"
Well, anyway, time passed, and everyone remained curious about the whole baby thing (well, Katrina wasn't curious, obviously), but remained silent hoping the mystery would solve itself sooner or later. Could Homie D. Klown actually be the father? Would the mystery man reveal himself before Katrina did so? Would the baby be born with an addiction to hustling people at poker? All very good questions, and ones that will eventually be answered, but not necessarily in our next post. Join us next time as we take a look at another local business, and greet another unexpected arrival in the Monkeesim neighborhood. Till then, stay cool, and watch out for falling satellites!