Sagehen Mesa Season 4 Finale : The Population Crisis
It's time to wrap up Season 4 of the Sagehen Mesa Series. The overlord has noticed a disturbing trend.
The younger generations are showing a disinterest in finding partners and starting families. This will not stand! Time to coax them along in solving this population crisis. We have no pregnancies, no babies, only one toddler (Adan, son of Clancy and Rae Mahon), and no children. We have 7 teens - none of which are forming romantic attachments, and 11 young adults - and of the 11, only two (Tony and Sondra Whiting) are paired up.
Note: Story Progression has been turned off a lot this season due to the overlord wanting to focus on particular stories without the town going nuts, but it's time to turn it back on and provide some nudges in the right direction.
But before we start with forming relationships, 5 members of the teen/young adult group are ready to consider college, so some aptitude testing is in order. The plan is to send 3 of the 5 to college in the (real life) fall. Here are the results from top scores to bottom:
Ronda Culpepper who, despite running away from home in the middle of the school year, had the gumption to take some online entrepreneur classes while in Roaring Heights.
She has a partial scholarship and will be studying business.
Next we have Rusty Vest.
Rusty had a really difficult time with his aptitude test because, while he was taking it, he received news that his father Fidel passed way.
He left immediately and the results weren't scored. Under the circumstances, he was granted a retake, and did surprisingly well. I guess he wanted to make his father proud.
While he didn't score as high as Ronda, Rusty secured a scholarship and will be studying fine arts (unless my plans take a turn.)
The next highest scorer was Rosalie Lopez.
Rosalie, with a score of 1065, didn't score high enough for a scholarship, but she scored well in fine arts, so that will be her area of study.
Starr Gwynne was next, with a score of 955 and no scholarship.
She will be an alternate in case Story Progression creates a situation that would cause one or more of the top three to decide to forego going away to college.
Finally we have Lara Whiting with a meager score of 845. Perhaps she should have spent less time on her phone and more on her studies.
Now, with Nrass Story Progression on, we'll let it work it's magic in the background while we check in on Ms. Josie - the matriarch of the town, and her roommate Bridgett.
Ms. Josie is now 262 days old and has outlived everyone in her generation and a fair share of the generation younger than her. What can account for her longevity?
I used to think it was her fondness for basketball and riding her bicycle, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder about this mysterious seed she picked up somewhere. It got dropped on the floor in her kitchen, and for some reason, it can't be picked up or deleted. It's not even recognized as being there, though it puts off a mysterious glow from time to time.
I'm going to have to assume that it is an enchanted seed of longevity that has melded itself to the floorboards of the cabin causing anyone living here to have a long and prosperous life.
Bridgett was once a homeless woman who approached Ms Josie at the horse arena and asked for food and money.
Ms. Josie took her in and lets her stay in the spare room in exchange for helping out with the chores around the house. Bridgett expressed an interest in joining the fire departments, so Josie pulled some strings with her granddaughter Hannah, the Fire Captain, to get Bridgett a job there.
Bridgett took to the job like a fish to water, working her way up to Fire Captain as Hannah became too old to keep up with the work.
Bridgett recently had to take care of an emergency at the mausoleum where two teens, Larry Barclay and Margaret Gwynne (the preacher's daughter) discovered a large carnivorous plant running amok in their favorite make-out spot.
Bridgett stepped in to save the day, much to the relief of the teens and the rest of the town. Will Larry and Margaret end up married and starting a family after high school graduation? Time will tell.
Larry didn't seem interested in Magdalena Roland when she tried to get to know him better, so maybe he only as eyes for Margaret.
Maybe Magdalena is more compatible with Larry's more criminally minded brother Jarod.
He seemed to be a favorite of her Grandpa Cliff's, after all.
Moving on, Ms. Josie was invited to a party at Tony and Sondra's. The couple had just gotten back from honeymooning in Melino.
I get the impression that it wasn't all love and roses.
They didn't seem that interested in becoming intimate, and poor Tony spent quite a bit of time alone while Sondra ran around town doing who knows what.
To be fair, Sondra may have just had the blues and was grieving the loss of her mother, step-father, and father, who all died of old age shortly before the wedding.
She came to realize that it was time to start her own family now, so maybe things will turn around for this couple.
Tony decided to throw the party to help her get back into her life in Sagehen Mesa. He also hoped that they could start their family by having a little "after party" of their own.
She complied, but grudgingly. 😆
However, Tony was glad she made the effort. 😁
They may have to do it more often as I didn't hear any chimes nor see any reports that they are expecting.
I decided to check in on Sondra' brother Timothy as he's a bachelor living alone. Well, he was alone until he adopted a kitten and named it Evil Genius. He and Teri Greenberg, the caterer, seemed to be establishing a friendship so I wanted to see if it would develop into something more.
Despite Timothy having a slight interest in being more than friends, he couldn't help being Timothy and becoming condescending and insulting.
So I sent Teri to check out the online dating app and see if there are any eligible bachelors out there.
She met Hunter Dill in the library and wanted to befriend him - but only befriend him.
She complained about Timothy, and Hunter agreed that the guy is a jerk. However, this potential pairing is doomed to fail for two reasons: 1) Teri doesn't find Hunter the least bit attractive.
and 2) Hunter has a girlfriend! He explained that he just forgot to remove his profile from the dating app.
It turns out, Teri is more interested in women, and it turns out, so is Dara Culpepper. I suspected it about Teri, but I was surprised about Dara.
So I decided to nudge Hunter into proposing to his girlfriend, Leila Varney, and get their family started.
They had a quick private wedding and got to business.
By this time, Story Progression was doing it's work. Clancy and Rae Mahon are expecting another baby; Hunter and Leila are now married; and Kathy Roland and Nick Culpepper are significant others, but not yet married.
I tried to get them to risky woohoo, but Kathy took off on her horse, and Nick contented himself with a book. I'll try next season.
I was surprised at the animosity between Leona and Bryon Whiting - in the previous episode they seemed like such a cute couple, but I suspect Leona is tired of having to pull all the weight in making ends meet while her man-child husband pretends to be a popular musician and experienced horseman.
The pairing of our college-bound Rusty Vest and Ronda Culpepper was a surprise, though not necessarily a bad one. Rusty had a crush on Ronda before she ran off looking for Carmen-the-vagrant- magician in Roaring Heights. It looks like Ronda has taken notice of him since returning. They have moved in together.
Will these two make it to college, or will there be a surprise pregnancy that prevents them? Only Story Progression knows for sure.
Season 5 starts sometime next fall.
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