Free is the Best Price

Remar, summer, 2002
Tobi is 30, Li is 30, Ping, Aaron and Simora are 3

Remar brought about a time for rememberance and a light dusting of snow. It was the strangest thing. The news media, including Li's company, thought that it was a sign of the end. Rumors swirled about a new dimension, time warps and worm holes. Tobi thought it was silly the way sims overeacted to a little snow that melted by dawn. He only wished that the bills that Li retrieved from the mailbox had melted along with the snow.

The family was still struggling to stay ahead of the bills, still struggling to get a decent meal or three hours of sleep each day. Thankfully, the triplets were almost four and would soon be in kindergarten and on a regular sleeping schedule.

On the Day of Rememberance, Li spent all simday on the phone with her sister chatting about the children and emailing the latest photos of the triplets.


Ping, Aaron and Simora had grown so much. They were walking and talking and chewing blocks now. In fact, they were the best of friends, always looking for the others. Sometimes Li and Tobi found they sleeping on the playroom floor, cuddled together in a heap on the floor.

"Remember, Li, tonight I'm taking you to the train station." Tobi called out as he left for ther morning ferry.

Li smiled, estastic that she would be getting out of the house. They were going to the Apple Plains Train Station for dinner. It was an odd choice for a date, but it was cheap. How cheap? They found a coupon in the mail for two free dinners. Free was as cheap as it got.

----

After the babysitter had all the instructions, Li and Tobi boarded the evening ferry to the nearest train station and then took the evening train to Apple Plains. It was a beautiful town, or at least it seemed that way from thier view from the train station.


They had some time before thier table was ready, so they browsed around the small gift shop.

"Look, there's a photo booth." Tobi whispered to his wife.

Li glanced into the bar area and saw the photo booth. "You want to take a photo?"


Tobi whispered what he rather do in the photo booth instead of taking a nice romantic photo. Li could feel her face glowing bright red and wondered if anyone else could see it.

"We can't do that!" She whispered.

"Why not? It's empty in here, no one will notice."

"Why not." Li whispered back, surprised at herself.

----

Afterwards, the couple giggled as they half stepped half fell out of the tiny photo booth.

"I can't believe we did that."

"Do you regret it?"

"Of course not!"

Maybe it was the lack of privacy at home with a toddler bursting through a door at any given second that made the couple more comfortable with a public indescretion. Whatever it was, they could not stop thinking about it. While requesting thier reservation, Li giggled at the memory of booth shaking.

Tobi couldn't concentrate on the menu, all he could see was his wife's face in the shadows and thier hushed tones. What they both neglected to think about was that all the employees knew exactly what happened in the photo booth. Heck, if they started charging entrance on that booth then the station would be rich!

"Here's to us, to our family that is finally complete, to our love, to our memories, to family and friends." Tobi said over the glass of free champagne and thier first course.

Over conversations of the recent cases at the Mazaloom Courthouse, the couple made plans to get a drink in the bar and try thier hand at the dusty bass guitar.

Li watched as her husband picked a few chords on the instrument.

"I didn't know that you could play the bass?" She said.

"I tried my hand at it a little bit when I was younger. My dad, A'ron, made sure that we had exposure to all sorts of instruments."

Li nodded before ordering a drink. She wrapped her hand around the cool glass and tried to take a sip. Once the liguid touched her tongue, she felt a wave of nausea come over her. Strange.

She stood to visit the restroom and suddenly she felt so tired. Tobi saw his wife struggle to stay on her feet and wisely decided that it was time to go home.

As they waited for the evening train to come in, they held hands and stared in each other's eyes like lovesick teenagers. Tobi thought back to his teen years and how he chased after Marilyn Grey in spite of the crush he had on her twin sister, Ginger. Turns out Marilyn was more interested in girls and Ginger ended up marrying Grex Mendenhall. Would he have changed it if he could? He couldn't say for sure. He loved Li with all his heart, she was his wife.

"What's on your mind?"

"How beautiful you look tonight." Tobi honestly replied. No, he wouldn't change a thing.

----
A few simweeks later, while giving Aaron a bath, Li discovered that they may have been a bit careless that wonderful moonlit night.


----
Yep, Li is pregnant-can you believe it. While they were enjoying themselves at the train station, I directed Li to order a drink, however she kept picking up the drink and it would disappear (I guess she knew she was pregnant before I did). Then her stats showed that she was severely tired and hungry even though they had just eaten. ACR's pregnancy scanner confirmed that she was pregnant and due Lovar 2003. Seems like that woohoo in the photo booth wasn't safe woohoo.

I actually screamed with laughter when it said that she was pregnant, my hubby was concerned-but after I explained it was a sim thing, he returned to his activities. Of all families to get pregnant, it would be the family that has triplet toddlers, financially struggling and living in a cramped apartment. Well, it looks like the apartment will get even more cramped and the simolean will streach even tighter. I think they will end up being my first extremly poor family-at least for a little while.

The scanner shows that she's having one baby-but who knows. Also, as soon as they reached home, she was STRAVING. I looked in thier inventories for food and the only thing they had was a cheesecake. So in an effort to ensure that they would not give birth to twins-at least not from a cheesecake induced diet-I cheated with the Sim Modder to bump her hunger motive up, and then feed her mac-n-cheese. It would be just thier luck to have twins while the triplets are still toddlers. I didn't sign up for the Toddler Mania Challenge!