Monday, July 23, 2007

Anyone ever play the video game "The Sims"? I was booting up the internets, sitting at a desk looking out a window of my house. A woman pulled up in a minivan, parked in the street, obviously intending to go to the park across the street. She seemed somewhat out of sorts and was apparently moving a child safety seat from one seat in her car to another, a frustrating process with which I am familiar. Anyway, another woman pulled up behind her and she also looked a little sad. It is an overcast day - the kind of day where Dr. Bob would have had to give us a pep talk in Viking Chorus to keep us from singing flat and slow.

So then the two women started talking. I was vaguely listening to them, but the nice weatherproof window here kept me from hearing actual words. They sounded exactly like Sims. And as they talked, their moods both improved. By the time they were ready to walk together over to the volleyball court, they were talking loud, laughing and slapping each other on the back. I imagined pop up menus had appeared next to both of them and someone had set them to "talk...joke...touch...talk...comfort...joke...etc." It was very funny if you've ever played Sims.

3 comments:

  1. As you may remember I did occasionally play the Sims and your comment made me very homesick for my little guys: my very wealthy family that never left the house for an outside job but just made lawn gnomes all day, my luxury home with the pool next to the family that was barely scraping by and sleeping on their couch on the lawn, and of course George and Laura and their lovely daughters. By some stroke of fortune my Sims 2 doesn't work on my newer laptop but I do miss my little friends, especially, after reading your post, their little chatter and their ability to make each other feel better. So thanks.

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  2. My favorite was when they attempted to tell a joke or juggle "da da, dadada, tada!" or when they were crying and someone went over to console them "ahh, sim-son si-lo?", but no consolation would come.

    Sometimes the consolation would be returned with a smattering of RAGE!

    Rage. even the sims have rage..

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  3. ha ha ha ha. I like this story.

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