John Mole - Week 1

After a relatively long stint in Bluewater Village, we are visiting Desiderata Valley again. 

The Sim to focus on this week is of course John Mole, seen here as a child with his parents James and Lucy. (Sorry about the tiny pictures - something went wrong with the pre-made pictures for John; while some pictures are intact, for others there is only a thumbnail in the folder, no snapshot.)

Next, Maxis shows us John as an angry teenager, talking to an elderly lady (his grandmother - we are to believe that she raised the boy after his parents, both high profile special agents, mysteriously disappeared). 

Here the two of them are again, John now grown up and obivously doing his Nana proud by following in the family tradition, also becoming a spy.

I am not certain who Maxis means for these people to be; maybe they are fellow spies, or the top agents who have been training him. 

Be it as it may, one day John sets eyes on Sharon Wirth (obviously at a museum or gallery), and is instantly smitten.

The last of the Maxis-made pictures shows him kissing Sharon's hand. In his relationship panel, she appears as his crush, and if you remember when I played the Bell family (where Sharon lives, Hannah Bell being her sister), they were sort of an item, too. 

Upon entering the lot, I find John at his telescope, obviously enjoying his spying. 

His family biography says that "watching others is what John does best. Will he finally learn to live his own life?" His personal bio elaborates, telling us that "John comes from a long line of highly intelligent, highly trained and mysteriously disappearing intelligence agents. Will he learn to live his own life rather than spying on others?" 

His house looks a little too small to be forbidding, but the garden is surrounded by a high wall, making it impossible for anyone walking by to look in.

Only the ground floor is playable. Through the front door is a sparsely furnished living room with a computer desk and book shelf. Clockwise, doors lead to the kitchen with a single chair at the small dining table squeezed into one corner, John's bedroom (holding no wardrobe but an exercise machine), to the back garden with its tiny pool and a telescope, and last but not least the bathroom. 

John has a little more than 3,000 Simoleons in cash. He currently works as a Crime Scene Investigator, but would love to become Media Magnate - suitable for a Popularity Sim like him.

Therefore, on this Monday I have him look for a job in the Media career. He does not find one and so shall remain in his current career for the time being. 

Trent Traveller and Tara Kat make up his welcome committee. By the time John has made a platter of sandwiches for his guests, moved the dining table and added another two chairs, Trent has already been in the pool and comes in for the meal in his wet swimming trunks. Tara pretends not to notice. 

Later, the phone rings and John is invited for an outing. I choose Will's Garage, since I can't remember when I last played this hobby lot. 

It was Robert Kim who invited John, and his wife and son (not pictured) are there, as well as an unknown townie who seems to like Cynthia. 

John makes a batch of hot dogs and afterwards joins the other visitors to the lot to watch some sports on TV. Although this is a hobby lot for those Sims who love tinkering, nobody does any tinkering at all - they just chat, watch TV, go to the toilet and so on. 

It is rather late when John says good-bye and takes a taxi home, having to work the next day. 

"How nice it would be if there was an opening in the media career today," John thinks when he wakes up on Tuesday morning. Alas, there is no opening for him, and he goes to investigate some more crime scenes instead. 

He is a diligent worker, and nobody would guess that he'd actually prefer to do something else. A promotion to Surveillance Operator is welcome for the bonus, if not for the career as such. 

He has not yet made it from the car pool to his front door when Sharon appears on her own accord. 

No need then to invite her over for a small celebration! John serves spaghetti with meat balls and pulls out a bottle of sparkling wine from the fridge. 

Good job that on Wednesday, John has to be at work only at 2:00 pm. This gives him enough time to do rake all the fallen leaves in front of the house and in the back garden into neat piles, and he even manages to eat a plate of yesterday's leftover spaghetti before the car pool picks him up. 

Thursday follows a similar pattern: Before work, John rakes leaves, trims the hedge and pays the bills. After work, he rings as many of his friends as he can before it is too late to make phone calls.

Friends feature high on his thoughts and wishes - he is a Popularity Sim after all.

On Friday morning, less out of a desire to advance in his current career and more because it is autumn, when Sims typically wish to gain skills, John acquires a mechanical skill point before work.

It pays off the same day - he returns with a promotion to Reconnaissance Communicator and the career reward, which he uses instantly until a message pops up, saying "This sounded a bit like a ghost", and he puts the device away on his own accord. 

Still in his PJ bottoms, John takes care of yet another hole that has been dug by a stray dog in his front garden on Saturday morning. 

After work, he invites one of his best friends over. Marcel Jocque brings along Issac Bell, whom John knows as Sharon's brother-in-law, of course. The men have a game of kicky bag before their host serves Mac & Cheese. 

John sleeps in on Sunday and then spends the rest of the morning catching up with house work. Now that it is winter and no leaves remain on the trees, he can well clear away the piles of leaves. 

He cleans the kitchen on his own accord and then feels ready to throw a party. 

And a party it is! While you can only see Sharon here, all his friends turn up: The Kims, Marcel Jocque, Edward Contrary, Natasha Una as well as the Bells. Shortly after this picture was taken, Sharon jumped into John's arms on her own accord, and their relationship went from "crush" to "in love". 

Pizza, anyone? 

The party is not a roof raiser, but everyone has a good time. Not even a clogged up toilet can dampen John's spirits when he goes to bed that night. 

He may not yet have found his dream job, but at the moment his friends seem to matter more to him than that. After his schedule did not allow for much time with them during the week, the party on Sunday was a good way to catch up with them all. 

Is his relationship with Sharon going to mean for them to move in together at some stage, and will he find a position in the media career eventually?