1. Hi! Welcome back to Ruth’s (un)Officially Wacky Boolprop
Challenge! I must apologize for the unevenness of the pictures in
this chapter. Partway through the rotation, I figured out a shiny
new way to take pictures. It’s not that the old pictures are bad, just
that the new ones are better. (Although I do still need a little
practice in not including a Sim’s queue in the shot. I’ve edited that
out where possible.)
I also need to apologize for the language in this chapter. There’s
only one bad word, but I make it work triple overtime. Not,
however, without reason.
And now, let’s see what’s been happening this time around…

2. Now, last time, I promised to show you makeovers of Olga and
Casilda, and I am a woman of my word. Here we see Olga in full
Goth gear… including gloves. The dress is a mesh edit of a TSS
outfit -- apparently the original included a tie, for some reason.
I rerolled Olga’s everything, and she is now a Knowledge Sim who
likes werewolves and people in their underwear, but not those who
are mechanically inclined. I also randomized Olga’s gender
preference on the SimBlender, and she prefers males.

3. I had trouble deciding how to make over Casilda, since The
Gondoliers is a period piece, set during the days of powdered wigs
and panniers. However, the original Casilda was married in infancy
to a king, making her a queen, so I went with some vaguely
princess-y type outfits and hair.
Don’t expect this Casilda to play out that exact plot, though. I
haven’t got any kings in my game, or any queens either. Although
many of the little girls are princesses as far as their daddies are
concerned.

4. Old Adam and Glen have been tag-teaming the childcare
responsibilities lately, since Lisa has to work and the girls have to
go to school.
Luckily, as an Elder, Old Adam needs very little sleep -- and as a
Family Sim, Glen’s aspiration is usually high enough to be able to
use the Energizer.

5. Old Adam generally handles bath time. And this is the perfect
opportunity to fit this in: I know that in the past I have sometimes
been a bit mysterious about which twin was which, for reasons of
Plot. Well, there is no reason to do that with these two munchkins!
Deadeye is the one on the left, and Nanki-Poo is the one on the
right. You can tell because Deadeye has normal-sized eyes and
Nanki-Poo has large eyes.
I can also tell that they have different personalities, even at this
early stage. Do you see the fly buzzing around Deadeye, near the
middle of Old Adam’s forearm? Only Sims with 0 or 1 Neat point
get flies when they stink. Nanki-Poo has no flies, so he must be
Neater.

6. I admit to growing Nanki-Poo and Deadeye up a little sooner than
usual, because I wanted to get the family portrait underway. Old
Adam really is quite old now, and I want to be sure that he’s in it.
Since Lisa was at work, Olga helped Glen do the honors.

7. On the bright side, it makes the boys easier to tell apart. Nanki-Poo
is the one with the rockin’ hairstyle and the layered look.
Gilbert’s Nanki-Poo was the son of the Mikado disguised as a mere
strolling minstrel, although apparently his musical abilities left
something to be desired. I think that perhaps Nanki-Poo Shankel
should be musical as well, don’t you?
Nanki-Poo is fully Neat, Outgoing, and Active, almost completely
Serious, and mostly Grouchy.

8. Deadeye is the one in the sweet sailor suit. (I do try to use as much
Eaxis content as I can with this family, but what else is there for a
sailor in the Toddler age group? Besides, I’m pretty sure Free Time
introduced sailor suits, so this is totally just replacing that.)
Gilbert’s Dick Deadeye was a sailor with an eyepatch who was
universally reviled and criticized. I expect that Deadeye’s
personality will be closer to Gilbert’s other sailor named “Dick”:
Dick Dauntless from Ruddigore, who is handsome and popular.
Deadeye is not at all Neat or Outgoing, thoroughly Active and
Nice, and mostly Playful.

9. Pitti-Sing has been having some challenges with her homework
lately, and her grades are hovering around the D/D- range, but Old
Adam has taught her to study and helped her do enough homework
to fend the Social Worker off for one day.

10. The following day, Glen taught Casilda how to study and helped
Pitti-Sing with her homework. At the same time, which made for
an interesting conversation.
GLEN: …and add the one plus the six plus the two E-N-O-R-M-O-
U-S for a total of nine really really big, like an elephant or
something.
The girls don’t seem to have any problems understanding him, and
Day Two was a Friday, giving Pitti-Sing plenty of time to catch up
on her homework. I’ll just have to ignore the annoying Social
Worker popups for a couple days.

11. And speaking of homework…
OLGA: Will you stop that?!
PITTI-SING: Uh-huh. (keeps jumping)
OLGA: Now?
PITTI-SING: Sure. (keeps jumping)
OLGA: Look, I can’t do my homework while you’re jumping on
the bed. Cut it out!
PITTI-SING: Okay. (keeps jumping)
OLGA: For the love of Iolanthe, stop jumping on the bed right now
or I’ll set the Red-Headed League on you!

12. PITTI-SING: What’s the Red-Headed League?
OLGA: It’s a secret society made up entirely of people with red
hair, and they hate all people who aren’t red-heads. They
particularly hate people with black hair because black hair is
dominant over red. And they really especially hate girls with black
hair who don’t shut up when they’re told to!
PITTI-SING (cautiously): What do they do to them?
OLGA: Nobody knows. They come around and their victims are
never heard from again.
PITTI-SING: But you can’t make them come and take me. You
have black hair too. And you don’t know any red-headed people.

13. OLGA (V.O.): Oh, don’t I? Then what about Becky that I brought
home from school the other day? She’s a member of the League. She
told me all about it. And I dye my hair. I’m Goth.
PITTI-SING (V.O.): But you only put purple highlights in.
OLGA (V.O.): The League doesn’t know that. And if you tell them,
I’ll make sure that you disappear myself.
PITTI-SING (V.O.) (nervously): …Would Becky really make me
disappear?
OLGA (V.O.): Did you see how pissed she was when she left? She
didn’t know I had relatives with black hair. So, yeah, I’d say she
would.
PITTI-SING (V.O.) (in a very small voice): I’m sorry. I won’t jump
on the bed anymore.
OLGA (V.O.): Yeah, you better not.

14. CASILDA: Does the Red-Headed League really exist?
OLGA: What do you think?
(Casilda ponders)
CASILDA: I don’t think so.
OLGA: Don’t tell Pitti-Sing that. I want to see how long it takes
her to figure it out.
CASILDA: Okay.

15. At the end of Day Two of the rotation, Myrna came out for the very
first time. She seemed unhappy about something. Possibly that her
urn had been moved, or possibly that Glen is not as good a painter
as she is.

16. I have to admit that I wish she’d picked a different way to express
her displeasure.

17. Fortunately, one of the people I sent to plead made it there in time.
OLD ADAM: Please, Mr. Reaper, please do not take my son-in-
law! He is a good man, a good husband, and a good father. His
wife and children need him in their lives. Please, please, Mr.
Reaper -- on bended knee I beg! Please spare his life!

18. GRIM REAPER: .e.. .ou ..at: i. .ou ca. gue.. ..ich .an. .is sou. i. i.,
.ou ca. .av. .i. .ack.
OLD ADAM: Is that not your left hand?
GRIM REAPER: .on’. gue.. .e.. I’. go.ng .o p.. .y .an.s ..hi.. .y
.ack .o I ca. .ix ..ings u. w…ou. .ou .ee.ng i. I wa... ..en .ou ca.
gue...
OLD ADAM: You are aware, sir, that your robe is all but
transparent and both your hands and your back are only bone?

19. GRIM REAPER: ..en ..i. ..ould .e ea.y .or .ou. .ick . .an..
OLD ADAM: Ah. Hmm. Are you quite sure it is in your hand?
You have not secreted it up your sleeve, as in the shell game?
GRIM REAPER: I.’. i. a .an.. P.ck o...

20. OLD ADAM: HaHA! Yes! Suck it, Mr. Reaper!
GRIM REAPER: ..ere’. .o nee. .or tha. .ind o. .angua...

21. Which is how Glen was restored to the loving bosom of his family.
Don’t laugh -- it just means “chest,” and the phrase as a whole
means that they held him close in a great big hug.

22. And Myrna found her bed, and is quite happy about it. So all’s well
that ends well, right?

23. Oh, if only! The ghosts were out in more force than I’ve ever seen
them, and Ryan didn’t take kindly to Pitti-Sing’s attempt to mourn
her grandmother.

24. Oh, shit. This is bad. This is very very bad. She’s going to die, isn’t
she?
Shit.

25. No, she’s not going to die. This is worse. This is the Social
Worker. Shit.
Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit!
Woohoo!
I admit it -- at this point I panicked and quit without saving.

26. When I reloaded the game, I decided to send Glen to man the
Tacky Flamingo for the night, and to have him take Pitti-Sing with
him. After all, they have food there, and the Social Worker can’t
show up to take kids at a community lot, right?
Yes, this is cheater-y. Myrna did not approve.

27. And when I say that she didn’t approve, I mean that she did not
approve at all.

28. The Social Worker still showed up, and took all the kids away.
(Except Olga, who is a Teen.) At that point, Ryan decided that he
didn’t approve of cheaterpantses either, and scared Glen in the one
place that nobody could get to in order to plead for his life.

29. Okay, no problem, right? We can work around this. After Lisa,
Adam, and Olga made it through the Night From Hell, Lisa
resurrected Glen using the Bone Phone -- paying the full amount,
of course, cash on the barrelhead -- and calling to adopt her kids
back.

30. Just one leetle problem: This is not one of the kids taken by the
Social Worker.
Further investigation showed that neither Lisa nor Glen had any
memory of the kids being taken away. Lisa was probably distracted
by her husband dying, and Glen probably didn’t notice because he
was too busy being dead. But having the memories missing is
definitely a Bad Sign, and when the SimBlender couldn’t find the
kids, I knew something was bad wrong.
So I restored from backup, and lost all the events of the Night From
Hell.

31. Please note that restoring from backup was not an attempt to
sidestep the bad events like death and the Social Worker. I was
willing to work around that, even if I wasn’t particularly happy
about it. But the missing memories and missing children point to
sudden, terrible corruption, and I don’t want to lose the whole
’hood. I simply replayed the previous day-and-a-bit, and with a set
up like that, is it any wonder that my Sims resorted to two-fisted
drinking the second time around?

32. When replaying the Night From Hell, I made sure that everyone
was involved in activities that are difficult to stop. For instance, for
Lisa to be scared to death, she would have to stop teaching Nanki-
Poo to talk, and the animation for that takes long enough that being
scared might very well drop out of her queue.

33. Glen taught Deadeye to walk, and Olga gained a lot of skill points
that night. She is old enough to die, and I don’t want her to.
Even if I didn’t like her, I need her for Plot.

34. There was nothing I could do with the littlest ones, except send
them to bed. Old Adam I kept mobile so he could run and plead
with the Reaper for anyone who needed pleading.
…And after all that, not one ghost made an appearance.

35. The next morning, Adam decided to Officially pass along the
business.
LISA: Are you sure, Poppa?
OLD ADAM: Of course I am! I am certain that you will do a fine
job with it.
LISA: But I’m not sure I can get there to open up every day.
OLD ADAM: O, do not trouble yourself about that! As long as I
am able, I shall go manage the property for you any time you wish
it. It is merely that passing things along now requires less
paperwork and fewer legal fees than leaving it as part of my estate.

36. Adam also tried to Pass Along certain business perks to Olga, who
was having none of it.
OLGA: Grandpop, why would I want to perk someone up? If
they’re in a gloomy mood, they do not need to be jollied out of it.
That’s like saying that their feelings are, like, invalid or something.
And if I want to call someone, I’ll look up their phone number
online. Esme, you’d think computers didn’t exist!

37. The business is doing very well, by the way. Here we see proof that
Mrs. Crumplebottom approves of throwing strikes. And why
shouldn’t she? It’s mostly what she throws herself.
Seriously: get Mrs. Crumplebottom on the bowling alley, and she’ll
leave your customers alone.

38. Come Day Three of the replay rotation, the ghosts were out in
force, and they were Not Happy.

39. And since every single one of them made a beeline for Glen, I had
a horrible sense of déja vù.
LISA: Oh, please, Mr. Reaper! Please don’t take my husband!
Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease --
GRIM REAPER: I’.. .lay .ou .or .im I. .ou’.. ju.. b. qui...

40. I don’t think anyone was happier than I when the rotation was
over. At this house, anyway.
But let’s go see what’s happening with the other families you know
and love, shall we?

41. Unfortunately, this was not the only house that the Reaper visited
this rotation. Adam’s sister Buttercup earned her umbrella drink
and hula zombies at the ripe old age of 78. She will be much
missed.
The rest of the family is doing well, or at least as well as can be
under the circumstances.

42. In happier news, Leila and Abhijeet had a small yard wedding. The
bride wore Sentate and a smile, the groom wore his formal brujo
robes and an equally large smile. Abhijeet Fuchs became Abhijeet
Shankel even though traditionally, Leila (the younger of the two)
would have taken his name. But can you blame him for making the
switch?
I can’t.

43. Rose and Dmitri have had another baby, and here he is: Ivan
Dmitrovich Shankel.
This may seem sudden, because it is. Rose was very early pregnant
at the end of the last rotation -- so early that I wasn’t sure she was
pregnant. (I was in the bathroom at the crucial moment and missed
the lullaby.) Ivan was born on the last day of the rotation.
However, because I am going to have to rebuild and you can’t
make any Sims younger than Toddler in CAS, he had to be aged up
in a hurry.
I am sure that you will agree this makes him no less cute.

44. And lest you think I’ve forgotten about the other child in the house,
here is a completely adorable picture of Alexander and Tiger, the
family cat.

45. Both Nicholas and Draupadi have grown into Children. And while
I do not have a picture of Draupadi to show you (for which I
apologize), here is a picture of Nicholas, who was temporarily
overheated from playing an energetic game of Whap! with
Grandma Fantine.
I will show you a picture of Draupadi next time, I promise.

46. Sadly, Old Adam’s brother-in-law Oliver died at the age of 74, and
was shortly joined by Old Adam’s brother Oakapple.
We’ll just chalk this one up to a broken heart, shall we?
On which gloomy note I will leave you.

47. Notes, disclaimers, and other trivia
This chapter’s title is from The Gondoliers, and the song is quite
appropriate. For instance, it contains the lines “Death is the only
true unraveller!” and “Life’s perhaps the only riddle/That we shrink
from giving up.”
Also, yes, I did try and weasel my way out of the negative
consequences of the hauntings, but I think that I was more than
adequately punished with instant neighborhood corruption. Do you
think that we could maybe call it even?
Please?

48. Now, although I managed to not shred my ’hood beyond all
recognition this rotation, I have in the past done some Very Bad
Things without meaning to, and the ’hood has been showing mild
signs of corruption for a while. Having to restore from backup this
time, plus having to restore from backup again less than a week
later for an unrelated (but nasty) issue, has convinced me that I
need to rebuild anyway. joandsarah77 has agreed to extract my
Sims, and you shouldn’t notice a decrease in quality bar a possible
delay in chapter posting.
On an unrelated note, the random Teen Olga brought home is
wearing my Birth Queen Skin. Deadeye is wearing the normal alien
skin. Pretty good match, huh? [/shameless self-promotion]

49. When I rebuild, I will lose all the levels that the Tacky Flamingo
has earned thus far, as well as all business perks and customer
stars. I am a bit cross about the business perks, but there’s nothing
I can do. I would, however, value my the opinion of my readers:
Should I count myself as having completed the requirement to have
a Level 10 business, or should I start the scoring for that over
again?
Maybe if I start all over again, that would pay for trying to weasel
out of negative consequences?

50. The Grim Reaper’s lines, in order:
Tell you what: if you can guess which hand his soul is in, you can
have him back.
Don’t guess yet. I’m going to put my hands behind my back so I
can mix things up without you seeing if I want. Then you can
guess.
Then this should be easy for you. Pick a hand.
It’s in a hand. Pick one.
There’s no need for that kind of language.
I’ll play you for him if you’ll just be quiet.
Until next time, Happy Simming!