Life in Pleasantville Part 3 - Melissa's very bad week.

 In the last episode, I mentioned that Corinna Hebert was over at the Blackmon house slapping Garrett Dean silly and showing an unhealthy interest in one of the teenage boys. Since then, Melissa Blackmon has called it quits with Garrett Dean, and I moved him out to the starter home. I'm not sure he stayed there. I'll have to check up on him. What I do know is that he was out looking for love at the grocery store not long after the breakup. 

However, these stubborn sims just don't know when to call a relationship quits! I must have been back with the Butler household when I got this message. 

Run Melissa! Run!

Yes, Garrett is definitely the Don Lothario of Pleasantville. It looks like he's even winning Corinna over. 

At this point Corinna likes him but Melissa doesn't. Maybe Corinna likes him because he was showing interest in her cause down at the protest to protect the Wookie, but I think he was more interested in her than the cause. This was at City Hall, which wasn't finished yet, but I took care of that recently. 

Here's City Hall now. This place didn't have a library, so I incorporated it into the building and designated the lot as a library. I know of a smaller town near me that has done this. 

Here's the shell Boring Bones provided. 

The bathrooms are off the entryway; the library is to the left, and the mayor's office and a town hall meeting room are to the right.

I placed an events room upstairs for weddings and other special events as most houses are too small to have very many guests.  

I've fixed up a few other buildings as well. Here's one of the houses. I think I only have one more to do now. 

I call this one the balcony house. 

It features two bedrooms, one bathroom, a sunroom, and a loft area that can be used as a home office with access to the balcony. 

I really like these curtains from Roaring Heights. I think they make the room. 

The master bedroom is small and a little empty, but I don't know who is going to live here. I might revisit it at a later point. I'm also not sure of how I feel about the wall color. 

This world tends to be rather foggy, especially in the mornings, and it has frequent hail storms. (I turn off rain, or I'm sure it would be raining constantly.) Here's the fire station.

The upper floor has the sleeping quarters, bathroom and work-out area and overlooks the firetruck below. 

Downstairs has a tiny kitchen that only one person at a time can use, a TV area, a foosball table, and eating area, and of course, the firetruck. 

Next we have the science and military building. I really wanted to add a basement with some alien artifacts - maybe the space ship - but the terrain is uneven, there's a foundation, and the lot is really small, so an outside entrance using stairs didn't seem feasible. Boring Bones also uses constrainfloorelevation cheats on a lot of these buildings, and I didn't want to mess things up to the point I couldn't fix them. I settled for a combo science/bot building lower floor, and a military recruitment office on the upper floor. I also provided access to the roof and put a railing around it for using telescopes. 

 

There's a small bathroom equipped with a shower behind the stairs in case it's needed.

Here's the recruiting office. It has a computer, a couple tables with stacks of uniforms and fliers, and some exercise equipment. There wasn't room for much else. 

One thing I forgot was the inventing table, but there's no room now. I think I'll include an engineering classroom at the school, which I haven't addressed yet. It would also be nice if I could fit the observatory rug up on the roof, but I'd have to remove the solar panels, and I'm not sure I want to do that.

As for the neighborhood news, many of the kids, including little Michaela Butler, have aged up. 

It seems that all the couples are fighting with each other. It must be something in the water. Maybe it's the constant hail storms, who knows? It has even started to affect the Butler's. 

Garrett Dean has seen fit to flaunt his new relationship with Corrine in front of his ex-girlfriend Melissa Blackmon (or I guess flaunt it behind her would be more accurate.) The poor woman was just trying to get out of the house and get some exercise. She was in a bad mood anyway and really didn't need this. She dislikes both of them now. 

"Must you always be so insensitive and inappropriate?! Get a room!" she scolded as Corrine stood by and smirked. 

"You'd better hope you don't catch an WTD if you plan on spending time with her!"

"You know full well you are only in love with yourself!"

Melissa is ready to move on from this relationship. But where can she find a good man in this small town? To make matters worse, the next day she set the house on fire while making pancakes. 

They were all in a panic, but a handsome firefighter showed up to save the day. He was quite taken with Melissa. Maybe there are a few good men out there after all. His name is Keenan Gold. 

The boys were starving and realize there'd be no more hot meals for quite some time. 

"I don't know what happened! I was just fixing my boys some pancakes, and the stove erupted into flames!" 

"Your insurance should cover some of the cost, but repairing the damage to this kitchen will be expensive."

(This household only has 1441 simoleons at this time. Maybe the boys need to consider part-time jobs to help out.)

Keenan then followed Billy outside where they commenced to pillow fighting. 

Then Billy went inside to finish his homework and Alex started pillow fighting with Keenan. 

"What's wrong with you! This nice man doesn't want to pillow fight! Don't you have some music you need to be practicing?"

"Or maybe you and your brother can go fishing or something." (I think Keenan really does want to pillow fight.) 

"Mom, you know it's supposed to storm today. Do you really want us caught out in the rain and hail?"

Melissa finally got Keenan away from the boys and tried to get to know him a little better. All she learned about him was he was a fireman and didn't like unicorns. 

"Do you have any idea what it's like to try and put out a fire while having a unicorn waltz into the house? It's no picnic I tell you! They get in the way; they panic and rear up on their hind legs; it's really not the best situation to be in. Yep, fire and unicorns do not mix!"

"I hear playing soothing music can sometimes calm an agitated beast. Maybe next time you are in this type of situation, you can turn on a stereo or something?"

Keenan was polite and didn't say so, but he felt there was only a ghost of  a chance of that working. 

He said the next day was his day off, so they made plans to meet up at the park. 

I think Keenan had a great time, but I get the feeling that playing hopscotch with a full-grown adult in a cardboard simbot costume wasn't what poor Melissa had in mind. 

We still don't know any of Keegan's traits, but I'm thinking childish and simbot fan are definitely part of his personality. They parted as friends, but I get the feeling romance may not be in the cards. 

All-in-all, this has been a very bad week for Melissa. The next day was a full moon. I had left her to check on Garrett and Corrine, but I saw Melissa at the movie theater. 

I think her bad week is having a negative effect on her parenting skills as well. 

She looks a bit crazed. 

Perhaps baby Shanta's brothers need to take over the childcare for awhile.  

Speaking of Alex and Billy, it looks like Alex is the one who has won Danica Benoit's heart. 

I found them on a date at the movie theater, after which, they went to the Asian Grill for some dinner and a make-out session. 

Billy and Danica are best friends and Billy and Alex have a good relationship, so I guess Billy doesn't have any romantic interest in Danica - at least not yet. 

As for Danica's family, her parents are still enemies of each other, probably because her father isn't very good at his job. 

But in spite of them being enemies, their family keeps growing. How can two people who despise each other produce so many kids? 

There's Danica, a teen - Virtuoso, Bot Fan, Animal Lover, and Athletic,

Kelvin, a child - Couch Potato, Loner, and Virtuoso,

Zhiddeezoe, a toddler (Lawrence's alien baby - I suspect the family just calls her Zoe) - Couch Potato and Athletic, strange as that may be. 

Bubba, a toddler - Virtuoso and Light Sleeper,

and a baby on the way. 

I had to build on another bedroom upstairs to make room for everyone, which was quite the challenge, the details of which will be in the next installment. 

As for Garrett Dean and Corinna Hebert, they still live in separate houses: Garrett in the starter home and Corinna in the "green house" with her son Ellis. I had to switch out Ellis' crib with a bed since he aged up, but that's all the changes I have made to the house. Corrine has gotten the urge to be a writer as well as a chef, so she's been going to the new library and practicing her writing skills. She's started her first novel, "The Other Woman." Garrett is still working as a teacher, but I think he wants to switch careers. Teacher burnout is real! I can't remember what he wanted to do. I'll have to check next time I'm in the game. For now, he and Corrine seem to be keeping things casual, going out on dates but not taking that next step.