obsession: by Maxis

I did it.

I went into the light. I did. They warned me not to, but I was weak, and stupid, and I made the mistake of millions of others before me. Yea, I did trip blithely into the valley of the damned, eyes open and blind. In mine arrogance did I trust in the strength of thy servant, and heed the whispers of serpents.

On Saturday, I bought the Sims. I have fallen, verily, and I can't get up.

New rule: I will no longer buy computer games on Saturday. Or Friday. Henceforth, all computer games will be bought on Sunday. Late on Sunday. This rule will be added to my other Rule of Life and Living and Other Cool Things: Never drink orange juice after brushing the teeth. Both, I think, are good, sound, well-considered principles.

Needless to say, the rest of the weekend was a bit of a blur. Do you all know about this phenomenon called the Sims? It's basically a simulation game, a next-generation Tamagochi fantasy. As god, you control the happiness of families of people, (which you create), in houses, (which you create), based on incomes from jobs that you help your little Sims find. They eat, they clean, they watch TV, they socialize, they bathe, -- they poop! -- based on your directions. Left on their own, most of them would much rather stink, sit around the house watching television or playing games, and avoid work. They're a lot like me, in some respects. Bad Sims. They must be punished. They're three-year olds, with money.

Part of me, the grown-up part that likes the healthy side of frosted shredded wheat cereal, points out that there are people dying in Afghanistan, and women being brutally oppressed under Taliban rule, and a social outrage of hypocrisy being practiced in Pakistan, Kashmir, Israel, and Palestine. The other part of me, the one that likes the frosted side, says, "But look! My Sims are dancing!"

I told the Guy that I wanted to buy the game because all my friends were talking about it, Flamingo in particular, and I wanted to know what was so exciting. I wanted social context, dammitall, and never even suspected I was giving in to the megalomaniac within. Who knew I had a yearning towards godhood? Watching the little people run around doing their thing has an obscure, voyeuristic fascination. I'm obsessed.

The Guy wandered into my room to watch me playing during hour 9, Saturday night.

"Boy, you like pushing people around, don't you?" he commented.

Damn straight. And I want more.

I want the Living Large extension. And the House Party extension. And the new Hot Date extension. And, and, and....

(Somebody...help me.)

Bob -- that's the car, Binky -- was in the shop this weekend, so the Guy and I rode the motorcycle to Costco to pick up the Sims. Never mind about the idiocy of riding a motorcycle to shop at Costco. The software was cheaper, there. At Best Buy, it was $49. Saved myself $12 by popping on over to your favorite family discount warehouse. Of course, at Costco, the software box was two feet by nine feet by four feet, and came with forty copies, but who's complaining?

(Ignore that last sentence. It was a joke. Ha hah! It's the kind of humor that keeps y'all coming back for more. Actually, the box was only two by seven by four, and it was only twenty copies.)

We parked the bike next to a large minivan containing: 1 Mother, 1 bug-eyed male toddler in child safety seat, 1 scraggly looking girl approximately age 5.

The bike was an immediate hit. The windows on the minivan were rolled down to prevent suffocation on the part of the 1 mother, 1 boy-child, and 1 girl-child. The bug-eyed boy-child wrapped grubby fingers on the window and peered over its edge at us.

"Motorcycle!" he identified, right off. Child of the 'naughts, he is. First word any aspiring yuppie learns, after "stock portfolio" and "Porsche." His big sister scrambled across the seats to investigate, while Mother glanced over to make sure we weren't baby-eating Harley-Davidsons. Our innocuous charm assuaged her anxieties.

"That's right, motorcycle," she agreed, proudly. Look, my baby can talk.

"Is that two boys and a motorcycle?" the girl-child asked, craning her neck to see.

"Two boys," repeated the boy-child, smugly. My brothers on a motorcycle. We bad, man.

The Guy and I started to giggle. The Mother kindly corrected her child.

"Nooooo, I think it's one girl and one boy, honey." She sounded faintly dubious."I think their gear makes them look like boys."

"Ooooooh," the kids said in unison.

The Guy supported my shattered self-image into the store, snickering the entire way.

In fact, half of Saturday -- the half that was pre-Sims -- was a motorcycle day. We sauntered into Best Buy to try and buy me a cell phone, (abyssmal failure). The sales clerk, who wasn't yet old enough to have reached his sexual peak, paused in the middle of his pitch to ask, eagerly, "DidYouRideAMotorcycleHere?"

Since this came hard on the heels and in the same breath as, "ThisServicePlanIsPrettyGood," it took me more than a minute to figure out what the hell he was saying. I stared at him blankly; nearby loiterers could have heard my brain clanking as it shifted gears without using the clutch.

"Uh," I said. I waggled a bit.

"WhatKindOfMotorcycle?"

"Superchicken?" I hazarded, remembering some random conversation with The Guy from ages back. "Er....superhaw--"

"IsItYours?"

"Um, no. I rode passenger. This phone, here--"

"AreYouGoingToGetOneOfYourOwn? IWantToGetOne. MotorcyclesAreSoCool..."

Anyway. It was a motorcycle day. Posted by yhirata at October 22, 2001 12:01 AM