seaside woods, grounded for life

October 2080 - Tad and Tosha Harris are 71. Talin Collins is 66, Abigail is 65. Nina Shaw-Gothier and Benjamin Gothier are 64.

Tad thinks it's nice when the younger ones move in. They're not that much younger - not even ten years, probably. But they never had kids... that's why they're still all lovey-dovey! Because first you have kids, and then your wife eats too many pork chops and loses that nice figure she used to have. You see, Abby, she keeps herself nice and trim. Very pretty lady. Never had any kids to mess up that nice figure of hers... But on the other hand, Tosha does make really good pork chops. He just wishes she would use that treadmill he bought her a little more.

And of course, you have to have kids to get great grandkids, and Tad and Tosha have five precisely - Melissa, Zachary, Sarah, Sam - and leading the pack, Lucy, who has never been in trouble her whole life like she's in trouble right now.

"Go on, tell your grandmother what you did?" April says, but Lucy doesn't say anything, so April continues. "Do you even know what kind of criminals and perverts and weirdos hang out on beaches at night? This little girl was out until midnight with that Deppiesse boy, and she didn't even call!"

"We were right across the street from his house!" Lucy says. "His parents were home!"

April Harris once worried that Dallas might be a three-hundred pound woman or an ax-murderer, but she's now finding out that he's pretty much just a normal hormonal sixteen year-old boy, and that doesn't make her feel much better about the situation. Lucy is on lock-down. She's grounded for life! Or at least a couple months. "Midnight is way too late! Your curfew is 9:00!" April says. "You're fourteen years old. He's too old for you, and you're not old enough to date. And he just got his license - is he even a good driver? No, no, absolutely not!"

"We're not dating," Lucy says, but nobody seems to be listening.

"You are too young to have a boyfriend! I'm not having any daughter of mine knocked up and dropping out of high school. You are going to college young lady. All three of you are going to college!" April is very determined about this, and says to Sarah and Sam in the background. "Do you kids hear me?"

"You can't get pregnant from kissing," Lucy says, under her breath.

"So you were kissing him? You just said you weren't dating."

Tosha says, "Those teenage boys sure like to kiss, don't they? I kissed lots of boys back in my day..."

"Lucy, don't be naive, there's only one thing teenage boys are after, and what do you think comes next, after kissing? Do you think he'll want to just keep kissing you forever? And I'm not having any daughter of mine getting knocked up and dropping out of high school. Sarah, do you hear this?"

Sarah is thinking, Yeah, I don't think that will be a problem...

But Tosha objects!

Tosha says, "Yes, they like to do other things after kissing. I had your Aunt Alana when I was nineteen, but that was after high school. So Lucy, you're dating a high school boy then?"

April thinks her mother-in-law isn't helping any... "She's not dating anyone until she's sixteen," April says.

"I'm not dating him!" Lucy says, because the truth is, she's not! (But if she was, it would be great!!!) She was just kissing somebody else's boyfriend. And it took him five weeks to break up with Vicky, but he finally did. And now he's not dating anyone, really, officially. So no, Lucy isn't dating Dallas, but they do kiss a little from time to time, as much as one can kiss a boy when grounded for life.

Sarah has since left the drama, and Toby sits down in front of the TV. He says, "Hey, look, it's going to rain."

After dinner, Lucy finds a place to hide out, and then it dawns on her - Dallas lives just around the corner - she can even see his house from here!

Lucy has always been such a good girl, and a clever girl too, so when she says that she and Sarah are going to hang on the playground after dinner, nobody even questions it. Nobody remembers that Dallas lives just around the corner, or that Lucy still has her cell phone, or that sisters are inclined to cover for each other when such oppressive rules are put in place.

***

Abby often calls to check up on her favorite niece, Stephanie. She asks, "How's the cabin doing? How's married life treating you? Are you guys still getting along?"

Stephanie says, "Thanks, Aunt Abby, we're doing great!"

Stephanie sent pictures!

"Do you see? I bet he doesn't nag her," Tosha says. "That's why they're still so lovey-dovey." Tad and Tosha often find themselves in this situation, admiring what a very nice-looking couple Abby and Talin are. Very nice looking indeed!

There's mortality in the air at Seaside Woods, and Nina has just received notice that her sister Tessa has passed, of natural causes at the age of 72. Tessa has been living on Twikkii Island with her husband for the past 15 years, since the death of her daughter Danielle. This hits hard for both Nina and Tad. Nina for obvious reasons, and Tad because he went to college with Tessa and her husband, and because Tessa was just a year older than Tad and Tosha are now.

Nina's grandchildren, Devon and Angelo.

Maxwell stops by with the kids from time to time, not nearly as much as the Harris kids stop by. Not surprisingly, Valerie had no desire to visit her mother-in-law. Nina buys a doll-house for Devon and a toy helicopter for Angelo, though the children are largely unappreciative of the gifts.

Nina says, "So, what are you up to now, Maxwell?"

"What makes you think I'm up to something?" he says... of course Maxwell is up to something. "Well, there's this little card bar on the south side... I think I could make something of it!"

"Don't look at me like that," Nina says. "After your last little project, you're not getting another penny from me until I kick the bucket."

"That's not funny, Mom."

"Well, Max, we don't live forever."

And later that night... Whoa! It was like her sister was right there!...

Maybe only the Shaw family would be morbid enough to have a bunch of dead girls hung proudly on the wall, lol! On the left: Danielle (Tessa's daughter, Nina's niece, Maxwell's cousin). On the right: Anjali (Nina's daughter, Maxwell's little sister).

***

Nope, not lovey-dovey at all ;)

***

notes: I find it so fascinating to explore the exact same situation through two points of view - Like when I played Lucy, when she and Dallas were at the beach, it was all fun and exciting and romantic, because of course, fourteen year-olds still have that invincibilty chip in their brains... but then, when I played April, it totally put me into Mom-mode, and I figure she's thinking, "Oh my God, my fourteen year-old is hanging out on the boardwalk at night, with all the perverts and drug-addicts and drunks, with a hormonal older boy who only just got his license!!!" And thus, Lucy got SO grounded, lol! :)

Tosha rolled this round's reroll turn-ons event, which was inconsequential since the ones she rolled also match her husband, lol. She had facial hair and custom hair, and rerolled athletic and creative... They're a funny couple - Tad has a huge crush on Abby and Tosha has a huge crush on Talin... both of which are harmless since they've been married almost 50 years and sadly, probably won't be with us much longer :(

You guys remember Tessa Ramirez, from OFB? In my game, her family had a second daughter, Nina. They grew up in that "cursed" house in Bluewater, and both of their daughters died of completely unrelated random events rolls, both at the age of seventeen. Freaky!