2. Why Having Babies is Massively Over-rated, a book by Kimmy Ryman.
Kimmy was having issues with the whole ‘children’ thing again. She’d never had to
actually look after her babies before; hell, that was why she’d abandoned that second
one. She kind of missed Terry for that reason; he could bloody well usurp these ones’
love too so long as she never had to change another diaper.
3. But it was just like nothing worked. No matter how long she spent practising how best to
lecture people into absolute submission…
4. The babies still wouldn’t listen and figure out how to hold it already.
5. And the way they slept, you’d think they didn’t even feel bad about it, even while still in
their own filth.
6. And of course then she would have to clean the selfish little buggers up as they splashed
around happily, like they didn’t have a friggin’ care in the world.
7. Luckily she had a husband, and since she still had her job she could reasonably kick him
out of bed in the middle of the night to deal with it instead. Not that she wouldn’t have
done the same even if she didn’t have a job; he was the bloody family person here.
8. And with his no neat points and love of children, he seemed to actually kind of enjoy the
whole thing. Weirdo.
9. The feeding was at least a lot easier, shoving a bottle in those wailing little mouths until
they shut up so her headache could go.
10. But even with Justus helping, it didn’t stop Kimmy feeling like the babies were driving her
crazy.
11. And the continued lack of showers or baths wasn’t bloody well helping either. She didn’t
even care if the water was radioactive or whatever, she could just like empty out the
fridge and fill it with water and be clean for the first time in forever. Was that so much
to ask?!
12. Fortunately babyhood could only last so long, and Justus helped the babies grow up
when they were ready. First baby B…
13. And Benton got clothes that were rather too optimistic about anything that was going to
happen during his time in the house, and was sure to be worth a lot less very soon…
14. While Aisha got nice clothes too, but a continued complete absence of hair. Also they
didn’t look like, well, either of their parents very much, apart from Justus reassuring
Kimmy – in as far as she cared – that his face used to look like that until he became a
young adult. So, as far as she could tell, they were going to look like models for all of
their youth, and then their faces would explode into something far less as soon as they
hit adulthood. Great.
15. But then started the ordinary working week for Justus, who headed off happily to earn for
his family…
16. While Kimmy was stuck at home with the brats twins, trying to train them to be more
useful human beings.
17. At least their charisma bunny was kind of entertaining for her too, though that may have
been due to her brain slowly dying from this bloody apocalypse, childcare and lack of
showers.
18. Sometimes she almost thought the kids were cute too – until they started stinking to high
heaven. She wished she could still fit them in the sink, but changing diapers would
have to do for now. One of these brats better bloody lift whatever restriction meant
they couldn’t wash properly. More food would be nice too.
19. At least they seemed to share her frustrations on occasion.
20. And they weren’t so completely stupid that they didn’t learn how to use a potty eventually,
though they still managed to smell a lot. But at least Justus could empty the things
once he got home again rather than her having to do it. Though even then he might
not do it properly, so she still found herself scrubbing every available surface most of
the time.
21. And she started to teach them about their future responsibilities ASAP too. They weren’t
exactly struggling for food yet, but they were bound to eventually.
22. Actually both of them seemed pretty keen on getting more food. She was just struggling to
teach them about showers and their massive importance to the very fabric of
civilisation itself. She would get there though.
23. Until finally the brats got old enough to grow up and start school. And Justus clearly had
no idea about appropriate attire for a child’s birthday.
24. Luckily Benton was too fascinated with how much bigger he’d gotten to pay much
attention to other things right in front of his face.
25. And Kimmy had shooed him away to get dressed by the time Aisha joined her brother,
finally growing some hair in a neat enough style for Kimmy to approve of. Last thing
the house needed was lice, if they hadn’t all been killed by the sheer cold outside.
26. And then there was a glorious few hours where the house was child-free!
27. Followed by many more depressing ones where it wasn’t. At least chess was so difficult
that they spent some time being quiet. Some being the emphasised word.
“Mommy, how do you play this game?”
“Shut up and work it out for yourself.”
That would probably work.
28. “’How many pawns are there on a chessboard?’ … What the heck’s a pawn? Um…
‘There are no pawns on a chessboard, but there are four horsies, and four castles and
lots of weird knobbly things.’ Hmm… ‘Shut up and work it out for yourself’.”
The twins’ parents sometimes wondered why they didn’t get very good grades and got
detention at school. Luckily there was no such thing as parent-teacher conferences in
the apocalypse.
29. Not that the twins were stupid, but they were very much their parents’ children.
“Look over there, it’s a shower!”
“Where?!”
30. “Hang on, showers don’t exist- Oh my god, a grilled cheese sandwich!”
“Where?!”
31. “Heeeey, you can’t lie about food, now I’m hungry and you have to give me some of your
hamburger next time we eat!”
“Noooo, I need that!”
32. Cheating at chess (which was frankly one of the ways the kids got around the fact that
they had no idea how to legitimately play chess) aside, the twins got along very well.
Not that they had a lot of alternative of fun things to do otherwise, but they had very
similar personalities and were practically inseparable.
34. Though they adored Kimmy slightly more than Kimmy adored them, though that meant
very little, considering. Of course they had things in common, but even that didn’t
guarantee a great relationship, especially with someone like Kimmy.
35. But Kimmy wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon with the remains of her elixir…
36. And Justus was still busy endeavouring to do his part to improve the apocalyptic future of
his children…
37. So the kids stuck together, the best friends that either of them could have.
38. Even if there were worryingly cheery competitors who for some strange reason came
home with them occasionally.
39. But no-one else could really understand their lives and problems (whether they were
recognised as such or not) anywhere near as well as their own twin.
40. And they were always in solidarity on their homework answers.
“Shut… up… and… figure… it…out…for…yourself.”
“That’s not a three-paragraph essay on its own, though.”
“Um… Add in ‘I’m busy’?”
“And then go on about all the stuff we have to do!”
“And then tell them to go play with their toys or something and stop bothering us!”
“Awesome.”
41. The Benefits of Ignoring your Children Because They’ll Totally Be Fine on Their Own: a
book by Kimmy Ryman.
Some might observe that it was just as well the apocalypse had destroyed Hell’s social
services or Kimmy might have been in trouble.
42. Although perhaps not, because both Benton and Aisha wound up with A+s, though
admittedly with the added teacher’s note: “I give up, just stop bothering me.”
43. Kimmy slept through the celebrations. She got A+s as a child; it was easy, so hardly
something to celebrate over. Now shut up and go away, mummy’s sleeping.
44. So ostensibly the kids were fine, and Aisha in particular brought home plenty of kids –
especially boys – from school…
45. But with the lack of hygiene, minimal food, minimal fun, and a mother who referred to
them solely by the first letter of their names because she couldn’t be bothered to learn
the whole things… Well, maybe they weren’t actually coping quite so well as it might
seem.
46. Not to say Aisha, in particular, didn’t try to make Kimmy love her and get to know her
better…
“Welcome home Mummy!”
“I was only gone a few hours. Shouldn’t you be in bed at this time anyway?”
“Well- But I wanted to hug you!”
“Great. Go to bed, A.”
“Aisha.”
“Whatever. Bed.”
47. At least the other members of her family loved her. And they were becoming old enough
to seek out love from other people as the twins became teenagers.
48. And they turned out quite attractive too, for all that they didn’t have access to better
clothes or the ability to change their appearances.
49. And the twins remained perfectly in-sync with each other in a lot of ways.
50. And discovered the best available way to finally stop the horrible fumes, being willing to
strip off and sponge-bathe, as their mother refused to but their father was always
doing.
51. Aisha didn’t get too bad an outfit either, not that that cheered her up entirely…
52. But Benton was always on hand to try, now dressed in a football kit, though that was
almost certainly not going to be his profession.
“I don’t think I can play tonight, Bent. I just can’t think of anything. And you’re always
beating me at this lately. You’re just cleverer than I am.”
“Yeah, it’s tough being this smart.”
Aisha then invented an entirely new method of distraction, by kicking her brother and
distracting him with how big and painful a bruise he was going to have. Winning this
way cheered her up greatly.
53. Not that Benton really minded, if he was honest. He liked to learn, and you learnt stuff in
losing too. He was pretty laid back in a lot of ways, including over their mother’s
general apathy towards them.
“Hiiiiiii Muuuuuum.”
“Oh my god, stop smiling at me like that.”
“Maaaaake meeeeeeee.”
“Bloody children…”
54. Kimmy, for her part, mostly ignored her children. And nearly everyone else, including the
matchmaker who would still not stop stalking her. Justus was the only exception, but
mostly because woohoo was much better with a second person and Kimmy was much
better off on her own for most other things.
55. Including finally maxing all her skills. She supposed she was lucky to no longer be a
grilled cheese sim since there was nothing she could do towards it, and being a
knowledge sim was pretty darn easy really. And of course she knew everything
before, now it was just official.
56. And Benton was beginning to follow in her footsteps, deliberately or not. Though maxed
logic didn’t mean he couldn’t still play (and lose at) distraction chess.
57. And his mechanical abilities had been picked up from his mother in much the same way
as his chess abilities: beat the crap out of the sink with a wrench until it stops
spraying, or you stop caring.
58. Though he blamed that for how much his wrist hurt the next day. That and totally no other
activity whatsoever.
59. An issue that Aisha didn’t have and was feeling much cheerier about. Though both had
started getting spots, but there was no way of stopping those in an apocalypse, so
who cared?
60. Certainly the adults (who weren’t Kimmy, who flinched at the sight of such uncleanliness
every time) didn’t care. Including a rather pretty lady Benton met after Justus brought
her home from work. And then Benton was very disturbed by how pretty he found her,
given that she looked a hell of a lot like his mother. He sponge bathed very thoroughly
after that realisation.
61. Speaking of Justus, he was progressing through the ranks pretty rapidly (and got some
pretty awesome outfits), considering…
62. Until one day he came home in an unnaturally shiny red sports car, and…
63. YOU HAVE LIFTED OCEANOGRAPHY!
“Hello, I’m Justus Oates, and I’m here to talk to you about Oceanography.
Many people believe that Oceanography isn’t a very sensible lift for this early in an
apocalypse and- well, they’d probably be right. We struggle to feed our family, and
Kimmy continually throws tantrums about how she can’t shower, but Oceanography
still has its uses.”
64. “For one thing, you can lock your sims’ wants. So that family sim who wants a baby won’t
have lost that want by the time the baby’s born, and it’s all just a lot easier to make
your sims happy that way. Or, it is so long as your sims roll wants that can actually be
fulfilled within your current restrictions.
65. “The other great thing is that, like Science, Oceanography lets you unlock an aspiration
reward, but it is even better since you can also choose elixir of life and smart milk as
well as the wide range of helpful items aspiration rewards offer.”
66. “So please, think before you dismiss Oceanography for other lifts.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programme.”
67. There was a lot of elixir drinking to celebrate and Kimmy was very happy.
68. But the twins didn’t get any and didn’t understand what the big deal was, before Kimmy
told them to shut up, watch the TV and learn to cook so they could unlock more food
for them and be useful for a change.
69. But teenagers could only really focus for so long before there had to be something fun to
do. Like assaulting old men with water balloons. Which wasn’t the kindest thing to do
in permanent winter.
“I am Benton! Bent on Destruction!”
70. Also bent on building evil snowmen, though, besides the off-putting appearance, that
really wasn’t that evil or destructive.
71. Meanwhile the parents were now facing living together forever. Justus couldn’t say he
was all that fazed. He knew Kimmy, he knew how she was, and he loved her anyway.
He didn’t really anticipate that changing.
72. Kimmy hadn’t really thought about living with Justus forever, but working for forever was
an option. Mad science was kind of fun when she was allowed to mess around with
whatever she wanted, and so long as it got her out of the house and away from the
kids it was well worth the effort.
73. And she always had her best-selling books through which she could vent her frustration.
And laugh at the delivery people with their sleeveless shirts in permanent Winter.
“H-h-hello? I’ve b-brought a b-book! Someone let me in p-please?!”
74. But there were still drawbacks of the situation.
“There’s still over twenty lifts that have to get done and if we’re not going to die and let the
kids move on, we’re going to have to have more kids. As in, about twenty more kids.
And since Aisha and Benton are not far off adults, maybe we should continue…?”
“Since we have elixir, couldn’t we leave that, like, a few decades?”
“Well, we could, but we’ll be stuck living like this. Little food ‘til after Culinary, no showers
‘til after Medicine…”
“A and B will deal with that. Make outs for now. MAKE OUTS. NOW.”
75. Heaven knew that that the family struggled to get along as it was, and it was hard to get
any alone time in such a small house with no school for the teens. Who would have
thought you could argue so much over a cookery programme?
76. But they didn’t argue during the actual food; when you’re as hungry as they were you’re
too busy eating.
77. Hunger wasn’t really the greatest threat of death though. And Benton was low on the luck.
“AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
85. Though was unable to beat them in a fight.
“I was trying to flirt with you!”
“That wasn’t flirting – you called me a pig!”
“In a flirty way…”
86. Benton just had an unusual view of fun and not-fun things. Like the wonders of digging
through the trash with bare hands.
87. Though it was a pretty common thread through the family.
“What kind of attempt at cheating was that, Aisha?! If you’re going to try to cheat on the
first go, you have to make it good.”
“Sorry Dad…”
88. Though how anyone could expect normal children to come from Kimmy and a man who
mostly lived with a cow mascot head on, made all the weirder with the diving suit too.
But Justus’ life was best of all; hot beloved wife, two kids (with many more to come), and
a top level job. What more could he ask for? Except better heating, more food, a
bigger house… But he was happy anyway.
89. Kimmy disagreed.
Why You Should Be Able to Kick your Annoying-Ass Kids out of the House as Soon as
they Reach their Teenage Years: a book by Kimmy Ryman.
What was possibly more worrying about Kimmy’s books was that they became best-
sellers. It could only be hoped that either people were buying them to collect evidence
against her, or they thought she was joking.
90. The kids could have been worse, though. Aisha and Benton had done very with the skills
they were able to gain, and would have been chess champions if the infrastructure for
competitions like that were available.
91. But maybe Kimmy was referring to this happening all the time. Regardless, Aisha felt
justified, despite how much Benton protested otherwise.
92. And with that final teenage noogie done, Aisha started to grow up, before Benton could try
to get revenge.
93. And all of a sudden she bore a much greater resemblance to their father facially.
94. “Really, sis? You’re gonna wear a bright pink tracksuit for the rest of your adulthood?”
“Could be worse.”
“Ha, yeah, whatever.”
95. Aisha jumped straight on the computer to try to get a decent job, and settled for military,
which their mother had had to abandon.
97. Again, with a sudden facial shift to looking just like Justus.
“Why do my children never look anything like me?! I’m the good-looking one here, you
know.”
98. Benton was pretty proud of himself. Aisha, less so.
“Pffft, and you mocked my clothes? Nice hiking backpack for lounging around the house,
and shorts in permanent winter. And what the hell is that leaf headband thing?!”
“You’re just jealous, ‘cause I look fine.”
“Oh dear, someone call a therapist, he’s suffering delusions.”
99. “So, my dear, more children now?”
“I suppose we can try…”
“Gladly.”
~~~ End of Chapter 3 ~~~
