Season 3, Episode 21 - Our House

Original Airdate - March 29th, 2004

Sean and Jay look at cool concert DVDs at the mall. They’re expensive, so Jay encourages them to steal. They get caught, try to run away, and end up clotheslined by mall security. Tracker (Sean’s brother) is pissed. Sean just got off probation, and now he’s banned from the mall. Sean brushes it off. They’re not real cops. Tracker thinks Jay is a problem and wants to get Sean away from him.

But Sean is loving his life. He loves his friend Jay. He loves his new girl Ellie. And he loves shop class where he’s working on a final project worth 50% of his grade. If only his ex, Amy, would leave him and Ellie alone. She’s the one who dumped him, after all.

Sean comes home to a surprise. Tracker found a hell of a way to get him away from Jay. Tracker got a job on an oil rig in Alberta. It pays really well, but they have to leave immediately. Sean is really upset. If he misses exams, he’ll have to repeat grade 9. Tracker says there’s no way he’s leaving Sean here alone.

Sean tells Ellie who gets too sad to stay in the conversation. In shop class, Jay comes to playfully mess with him, and Sean pops off. His anger gets the best of him and he knocks over his tools. Shop teacher Mr. Ehl asks him what’s up. When Sean tells him, he offers an unexpected solution. He wants to see Sean finish high school, and tells Sean he should look into student welfare. All he would need is an adult trustee to agree to look after him, and Mr. Ehl is willing to do that.

Ellie is thrilled, but Tracker is not. He’s convinced this is going to go terribly, and Sean will be following him to Alberta very soon. Sean eats chocolate cake and chocolate milk for breakfast on his first morning. Jay and Alex think the arrangement sounds so cool, and Sean says his house is their house now. They have a huge party that night.

The next day, Sean falls asleep in shop, which Mr. Ehl doesn’t love. Sean’s home alone with Ellie when Jay and the show up for another party. Throughout all of this, Amy is being very weird. Sean’s late the next day, and Mr. Ehl tells him he better shape up.

Sean’s planning to study that night, but Jay shows up yet again. This time with “the Montreal Crew.” Party night 3! This time, Amy gets really drunk and tries to corner Sean when Ellie walks away. Ellie tells her off, and Amy goes for another shot. She’s unsteady on her feet, and Alex helps her to the bathroom. Meanwhile, the Montreal boys almost start a fight.

Luckily, the fight gets broken up by a scream from Alex. Amy has passed out. She may have alcohol poisoning. Jay does not want to call for help. This could threaten Sean’s welfare. But Sean does the right thing. The party vibe is ruined. Amy heads off in an ambulance, and Jay is still being a little shit. He asks how they’re going to keep the party going, and Sean puts his foot down. They’re not.

It’s clear the next day that Sean is over Jay and recovering his true self. He goes to Mr. Ehl to get the forms signed, and comes clean about the party. He says he wants to make things right. Mr. Ehl says he won’t sign the forms until he’s sure Sean is committed to changing, and Sean makes it clear he is. Mr. Ehl can tell that Sean doesn’t have a lot of people who believe in him. He’s committed to being that for Sean.

Things are looking up for our boy! He’s back on the right path. Let’s hope nothing traumatic happens to destabilize him! We will never see Mr. Ehl again. Or more importantly, Tracker. I liked him!

Meanwhile, Liberty is more than happy in her new relationship with Towerz, and she wants to spread the love to her friends and her former crush. She tells JT that Manny likes him, and he just needs to ask her to the dance.

JT buys two tickets, which Spinner sees. These two have a rapport now, it seems. Spinner says that JT is making an excellent choice for the dance assuming his goal is to get laid. JT defends Manny, but Spinner does kind of get to him. Spinner basically says that Manny has a reputation as a slut for a reason, and JT is like woah that’s kind of true!

Liberty goes to Manny next. Liberty says Manny needs to get out of her depression and realize that people like her. JT likes her! Manny seems very open to that. JT goes to make his move, with Spinner’s words in his head, and sees Manny talking to Craig. Hurt, he goes to try and return the dance tickets.

Manny stops him. She says she heard he was going to ask her and was excited. But JT is not nice about seeing her with Craig. Manny is pissed. JT is assuming a lot of shit about her, just like everyone else. Why does everyone paint her as some big slutty villain? Craig was the one who cheated on his girlfriend.

The next day, JT apologizes. He got in his head, not because he thinks Manny is a slut, but because he’s still a little stung from earlier in the year when Manny chose Craig over him. He asks her to the dance, and Manny accepts. How cute!

I’m ill. I’m stuck inside my bedroom, trying to avoid getting my roommates sick. And I recently upgraded my laptop. So I’ve been playing a lot of The Sims.

This happens every so often, and has for like 25 years. I go through periods of briefly getting deeply obsessed with virtual people. Everyone has their different style with the Sims. There are those who just want to build houses and design cool people. There are the people who want to make wild things happen and remove the ladders from the pool.

For a while, I think I was a pretty common type of Sims player. I would turn on cheats to give myself outrageous amounts of money and make it so I never had to deal with needs. I would make Sims of all of my friends and people we had crushes on (mostly famous) and then I’d make people kiss and reach career success extremely quickly. It was a deeply uncomplicated, id-based, wish fulfillment exercise.

But around the release of Sims 3 in 2009, I changed. I became something much rarer. Much stranger. I play the Sims with no cheats at all. I play the Sims to try and create good lives for my characters balancing all of the mountains of bullshit the game makes you deal with.

Every time I have to watch my Sims go use the restroom, or waste hours of game time while they sleep, I wonder why I do this. Isn’t the point to live out wild stories and crazy fantasies? No one on TV needs to pee (except Dr. Robby) and that’s for a reason!

But what I’ve realized is that without all of that stuff. Without things catching on fire and not being able to afford something and having to actually invest time in a person to become in-game lovers, the game gets really boring. The secret fun of playing house is that having a house is kind of annoying. You have to capture that.

When I was a senior in high school, my grandparents took a month-long international vacation and “hired” me to stay in their home and look after their animals. I was less than ten minutes down the street from my parents, but it felt like extraordinary freedom. I had a car. I had space of my own. I was So Grown Up.

I mostly just watched TV. Or played Playstation and The Sims 2. Or went out to other places with my friends. I was a terrible steward of the house. I have since learned that I don’t have a great sense of executive function when it comes to keeping house. I often have to actively fight against my own instincts if I want to keep things tidy, or more importantly, clean. This is a huge problem when you’re looking after two dogs and five cats.

My grandparents were understandably pissed when they came home to poorly cleaned litter boxes and overflowing trash bins. I was chastised. I was not paid which they had said they were going to do. This was beyond a fair reaction. And then a few months later, I stopped using cheats in the Sims.

I think the fantasy I seek to satisfy with my little virtual friends is one where I can do it all, including my chores. Because the Sims, for all of its meters to balance and hours to manage, gives you plenty of time. I can keep the house clean and develop my hobbies and go to little community events and have parties. I get regular promotions and can regularly increase the quality of items in my house. I even have time to go to Star Wars or Magic Land.

The Sims, for me, is an executive function fantasy. And also I can make Kim Mingyu a werewolf and we can fall in love.