<< Previous

Katie’s Diary

Day Eight:

For some reason, I simply couldn’t stay asleep last night, and I woke up “on the wrong side of the cot” as people say.. or they used to before they all disappeared. To distract myself from the constant hunger, I took yet another trip to my second home, the junkyard. For a change, I decided to go dumpster diving and see what might be in there.

Dumpster Diving… anything useful here?

I found a trashcan and a folding chair. Not exactly helpful.. but that’s what was there. By this point, I couldn’t ignore my stomach anymore. I forlornly headed to my little shack, and made some more peanut butter and jelly crackers. Then, I had a long conversation with myself and Norman. It didn’t help with the constant feeling of loneliness much, but it did give me a bit of an idea. With this inspiration, I headed for my inventing bench.. with Norman. Carefully, with my new inventing expertise, I fiddled and tinkered until I finally improved on his design. Now he moves!

Norman is improved!

With this success, I practically attacked the inventing bench. I managed to design a “Harvester” – but it’s not going to be much help without electricity or a good supply of batteries, so I stowed it away. By the end of my crazed try at inventing, I realized two things.. it was past dark, and I was out of scrap metal. I would have to go back to the junkyard tomorrow.

Day Nine:

Day by day I find myself sinking farther into depression. What am I doing here? Why am I even still trying? Haven’t I figured out that it’s hopeless yet? Talking to myself.. and to Norman only raises my need to be social so much. Every time I venture out I’m faced with the horrifying prospect that I could be all alone. What could have happened to everyone? And how could there be no sign of where they had gone? It seemed impossible, but I had to face the truth. Everyone I knew was gone. They could be dead.. but I had no clear evidence of that. Maybe they all just left… but then why didn’t they clean up before they went? Everything seems as if people just vaporized. And people couldn’t just vaporize.. could they?

Finally, I managed to drag myself out of bed and stood by my inventing bench. I was running out of ideas in a hurry. I could tinker around with what I had, or go get more scrap. But what would I use the scrap for? I felt completely at a loss. Maybe I didn’t have to have a plan to keep going.

Out of sheer stubbornness, I went to get my bike to go collect more scrap. On the way to the junkyard, I noticed something else. It wasn’t supposed to be fall or winter, but the air was getting colder. I could see frost on the still blades of grass as I rode by. The grass kept looking more dead, too. The trees were dropping their leaves.. even the evergreens seemed to be dying. How could I still be here and alive when everything else seemed to be dying?

On a whim, I turned down a side road to take the long way to the junkyard. I pedaled along, keeping a keen eye out for anything that seemed .. out of place. As I passed by the old library, I noticed a side door was ajar. Since I hadn’t been down this road since the roar happened, I’d never noticed it. I quickly jumped off my bike and cautiously approached the door. It seemed as if someone had just forgotten to pull it shut. The lock was engaged, but the door wasn’t clicked shut. Disengaging the lock so I wouldn’t get locked in, I made my way inside. It was dark, but there was enough light from the windows to see the topics on the sides of the stacks. I browsed slowly, thoughtfully, but part of me balked at “borrowing” from the library without permission. From a very young age, stealing had been frowned on, and I still had trouble taking things that weren’t mine. I ran my hand along the spines of the books, randomly pulling one or another out and putting them back.

Eventually, I found myself in the section on inventing. With a little more interest, I squinted my eyes at the titles, looking for.. what? I wasn’t sure, but I felt I’d know it if I saw it. There were some books on more advanced inventing, but nothing struck me as a “must-have.” I finally selected a couple of camping-themed cookbooks, thinking they might have ideas for the limited foods I had been able to find. Perhaps I could figure out a way to at least heat up the soups I had.

After a few trips to the junkyard, and a hasty meal in between them, I was exhausted. No more biking for me today. The air was starting to get so cold it stung my lungs when I breathed too deeply. I could feel a sickness settling into my lungs, and headed next door to my parent’s attic to retrieve my winter clothes. After getting what I felt I was going to need, I carefully relocked the door and went back to my “home.” I still felt better being underground at night with the shed’s doors tightly barred. I wasn’t going to be moving back into my parent’s home anytime soon.

With plenty of time still left in the day, I tinkered around a bit more, making another couple toys with varying degrees of success. I also managed to make a rotational pull and improved upon my localized static tester.. I had half a mind to try it on the radio. If only I could find batteries for it.

Seeing that it wasn’t dark yet, I went up to the shelves in the shack where I had stashed the radio, and again tried to turn it on. The batteries were weak, but it barely worked. All I could get was static.. and the static tester only made it louder. Fearful of running out of juice in the only batteries I’d so far managed to find, I turned it off and headed back downstairs after barring the doors for the night.

Learned Cooking

Reading by the torch, I managed to increase my cooking skill, and felt sure I could rig a Bunsen-burner type thing with the torches and torch fuel I had so that I could at least, finally, have a warm meal tomorrow. Finally having a reason to look forward to the next day, I fell into sleep broken only by a nagging cough telling me I should have gotten out the winter clothes sooner than today.

Day Ten:

Today, I took the side road to the junkyard again, stopping by the library to return the cookbooks. Since I was done with them, I felt too guilty at having them at all to keep them longer than absolutely necessary. I pulled out two advanced inventing books after re-shelving the cookbooks, then meandered around the library, for some reason in no hurry to leave. I browsed past rows and rows of non fiction books, seeing nothing of particular interest.

Slowly, I moved on to the fiction aisles. I’d long since tired of reading the three measly books I had, and there was a thought in the back of my head that perhaps I could find something more entertaining than just talking to Norman.

A shaft of light shining through a window landed on a section of Science Fiction. I walked over to it, for no reason other than being curious. I’d never been into science fiction, but being all alone in an abandoned world pushed the boundaries of what I felt was “normal.” Maybe these books weren’t that far out, after all. My hands fell on one book in particular, and I pulled it out automatically. Time Travel? Yeah, right. Too bad it wasn’t possible. Because if it was…

I stopped. Everyone disappearing wasn’t possible, either. But it had happened. I thought about some of the strange people that had been in some of my classes at school. Vampires and Werewolves weren’t supposed to exist, either.. and they did. Maybe time travel wasn’t as far out as it seemed. Shaking my head, I nevertheless tucked the book under my arm and headed back to my bike. Another couple of scrap runs filled up my inventing bench, and I got back to work.

Yay! A widget!

Through practice, I perfected a dog, a whale, and a cow toy, and made several of each, practicing the tiny mechanisms that made them work over and over, perfecting my technique. I took a break for some soup for my meal of the day, reveling in the fact that it was finally warm. When I just couldn’t do any more today, I fell asleep reading the book on time travel, letting the idea seep into my brain.

>> Next

So I got that save file working. And bonus.. discovered I have two save files, one from the very beginning of the story, and one way past where I have written. So I am left with three choices….

1. Start completely over. Pretty straight forward, I’d lose the beginning stuff I have (which I love), although I could rewrite it.
2. Start from the day 1 save and play seven days to match the seven days worth I have written up. This would allow me to add new screenshots and continue with the story as I want to without being constrained to how the game went when I played further. Would require re-setting up the world (ghosts, etc.) that I had done in the game file I took further in.
3. Use the Week 4 Day 5 played file in conjunction with the notes I have taken from it way back then. Would require very little set up, just the mods… however, I don’t have as many screenshots as I thought I had of the time that’s been played but not written into the story, and it would make things harder to progress the story as I want to.

I’m leaning heavily towards option two. I already wrote up days 8-10 in a new post, which needs proofing and editing, then would be ready to go. I’d lose all the time I played in the played file, but I think I’m okay with it. It would totally give me the freedom I want with the story, and allow me to stage screenshots better than the ones I have from 2012. I’ve already gone through the posts I have posted on my blog (prologue and three chapters) and edited them so they’re the way I want them.

If your interested, they’re here:

• Prologue: The Roar
• 1. Where is everyone?
• 2. The Will to Survive
• 3. Determination vs. Hopelessness

Expect to see chapter four in the next few days, as I said, it just needs editing.

I’ve spent way too much time on this considering I still have testing to do for Switch Three of the Apartment Switch, which is due out Sunday…. but that’s okay. I’m still having fun! Now, back to my testing …. (if only I can get this story out of my head long enough to play!)

So, one of my oldest stories on here is still technically “on hiatus”… and it has been since 2012. I never got to the point of retiring it, I just stopped writing it. Partially – well, no mostly – because I got so frustrated that I couldn’t make the game do what needed to happen in my story. I still LOVE the story idea, and where I wanted to go with it. I even have two “drafts” of posts sitting here on wordpress, waiting for the words to be written to go with the pictures. I have the rest of the pictures for more posts saved from backup to backup and computer to computer as the years have gone by.

It finally occurred to me tonight that if I had gone to all this trouble to save this story that had a measly three actual chapters posted.. then maybe that should tell me something: this story is important to me. Important enough to save, which means I really ought to honor that by re-examining why I stopped writing it and how I can get back to the story. I started the story, I think, as a game-driven story.. or so I thought.. but then the game didn’t follow what I wanted to happen. Of course, back then I didn’t know what a game driven story was versus a story-driven or scripted. Now I do… and what I see is possibilities. Whether I can do them justice, I don’t know… But if I saved this story for all this time (and I did), I feel I have the duty to at least try.

Where to go from where it is? First of all, it’ll need to be changed to a story-driven simlit. I couldn’t continue because game and story weren’t matching up and I wasn’t (at the time) willing to cheat to get where I needed the game to be. If I change the driving force of it to being the story.. and not the game.. then cheating in game to get the screenshots I need is possible, and even desirable. Which eliminates the main reason I stopped writing the story. Now the only question left is.. do I have the writing talent and/or time to put into it to make this story actually work? That I don’t know. But I feel I have to try.

So.. on that note.. expect to see some strange story posts coming sometime soon.. once I have the time away from testing the Apartment Switch … and I get the save functional again on Sims 3. If I can get the save functional in the next week or two, I will definitely be continuing the story. If not, it’ll have to go in the “retired” file.. but I truly think I can get it back up and working. I found the town it uses and have it installed and working, I just have to get the save back into the game. .. Then all I need is to write!

Can I do it? Who knows. (Why I felt the need to write all this out, I don’t know that either.. but here it is. Site update news indeed.)

Just spent some time editing the main home page and the menus to reflect what I’ve currently working on. In the next day or two, I should have another page for the castaway shores challenge up (finishing catching it up) as well as possibly another Falcon Apacalypse page (it’s already caught up, so that means more play time!) As for Spectres, I haven’t been able to get it working yet, so I’m holding off on updating it until I figure out if I can get it working again. I do have several more play days journaled that aren’t in the blog yet, so I could post them… I just haven’t yet.

I have both mostly done, just some more pics to add and proofreading to do.. so both will be posted tomorrow!  Oh yeah, and only 50 days left til sims 4! (and another yay, this is my 50th blog post on here!)

<< Previous

Katie’s Diary

Day Five:

Waking up today, I can truly say I felt a bit better.. other than being extremely hungry and lonely. I reflected a while on what I’d been through the past few days, and chatted with both myself and Norman. Things couldn’t be much drearier.. but at least I was alive… And definitely hungry. I waited as long as I possibly could before eating yet another cold can of soup – I still really wasn’t sure what to do with those supplies I’d pilfered from the bistro. With a satisfied belly, I set out for the junkyard to try to find some more tools for inventing.

Need some tools – but somehow, I doubt a pipe is going to help….

I found a whole lot of scrap, and an old screwdriver and claw hammer, which both seemed like they would be a big help… but not much more. With a determined sense of inspiration, I tried to invent something else.. anything would have been good.. but all I did was manage to set myself on fire again. Being that it was already dark, despite my now rather ragged clothes, no way was I going to go out to scrounge some new threads. Sighing deeply, I threw some darts at the wall for stress relief.. and then threw some more after I broke the toilet AGAIN! Well, at least I’m getting better at unclogging it!

Finally, near tears of frustration, hunger, loneliness, and a sense of pure hopelessness, I curled up in my little cot bed. I couldn’t even muster up enough energy to read the cookbook or a novel or play darts. I ended up simply crying myself to sleep.

Day Six:

So I guess it is true. Things somehow always look a bit better in the morning. Stalling for time before eating my one meager meal of the day, I once again pedaled through the fog and complete, eerie silence for the junkyard. It was practically becoming my second home! I managed to find a nice set of wrenches Ol’ Jim had apparently stashed in the bathroom cupboard (who would have thought to look there??) and quite a bit more scrap. I ended up taking three trips to bring home all the little bits of junk I found in my bike basket, and stored things neatly away in my invention bench. I also took a short trip back to my parent’s house to get some of my other clothes to replace the rather singed ones I had on.

Then, wearily, I sat myself down for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with my faithful Norman as my companion. He didn’t have much to say, but talking to him seemed to make me feel considerably better, and, after cleaning up my bowl again, I stubbornly set myself to the task of inventing.. anything. After yet another fire mishap (perhaps I should give it a rest with the gas powered blowtorch!), and the second shower in a can hastily employed in two days, I did finally give up for the day. I set myself down for an entertaining read of “A Magnetic Attraction,” which raised my spirits considerably. I then picked up the cook book and read as much as I could by torch light before finally being too tired to make out the words anymore. I did, however, feel that I finally learned some things about cooking.

Learned Cooking

How I wish I’d taken those cooking lessons my mother had always wanted me to take.. but there had always been tomorrow to take them. Now, those tomorrows were gone… and I was left to another lonely night of sleep.

Day Seven:

So… today makes a whole week of being in extreme survival mode – all by my lonesome. Well, except for Norman. But he doesn’t even move – or talk back.. so does he count? I suppose he has to, for what’s left of my sanity’s sake! After some deliberation, I decided that I wasn’t going to take my usual junkyard trip, but instead really dedicate myself to inventing something.. anything. So, to get myself started on my day in a better way, I decided to try making peanut butter jelly sandwiches.. on crackers. Tasted a little odd, but certainly better than the horrible canned soup. As a bonus, it was far more filling!

After a pep talk with myself and Norman, I set myself to “determined” mode, and practically attacked the inventing bench. I had plenty of scrap and tools, so those weren’t an issue.. and I was convinced that if I just fiddled around enough (and avoided the blowtorch for a while!), I’d have a brainstorm. Luckily, it turned out I was right.

Yay! A widget!

Turns out I managed to make some sort of Tentacled Wind-Up Thingy. Fairly useless, but cool nonetheless. Perhaps the next thing will fix phones and radios? Wishful thinking, but it’s all I have right now. I set back to work, and, with thoughts of being able to disassemble things a bit easier, I eventually made a Smasher widget – I’ll try it out later. With a little more tinkering, I even made a little doggy-robot looking toy.

Made a toy!

At least Norman won’t be all alone anymore! And I raised my inventing skill, as a bonus. All these successes left me feeling pretty good about myself, .. well, until I broke the toilet again. Fixing it was satisfying, however, and I feel much better at handiness. I celebrated by playing darts until I was exhausted, and settled in for as comfortable a sleep as I’ve had.. well, in a week.

>> Next

Just for the sake of my OCD, I sat down and took a long look at the way this blog is shaping up.. now that it is actually getting some  content, and starting to at least go somewhere. Last September (2012) I posted a brief outline of the challenges I was working on or planning to work on. Things are the same on some of them, but way different on others. So, for the sake of .. continuity..? .. perhaps, I’m going to run through a list of what I’m still working on, or getting started on. (some of these have been scattered through other blog posts on here, not just that September one.)

Beyond all that, my current goal is to make sure to post a chapter section in each challenge at least once a week. That being said, that goal will have to include “catching up” on the stories I already have started – because for most of them, I’ve kept playing even though I slacked off on blogging. I made sure to keep what I call “play journals” – notes of what was going on each day/week so I know where the story went, and can find the pictures in order through my memories and screenshots. The challenges not currently linked below… will be soon. All part of my “reorganizing sims” campaign I started on a couple days ago.. hehe. Meantime.. at least the few people who follow my blog will know where things are going!

Projects

• “Project One” – Cataloging and organizing all my items in Sims 3. I’ve finally gotten a fairly comprehensive set of “Collections” set up for these, and they’re about half full. It really does save me a lot of time when doing theme builds (which tends to be most of my builds)… so I do want to get this done. However, it’s extremely boring and time consuming, so I tend to work on it in little spurts when I get annoyed over not finding something or other. And the Sims Store keeps complicating matters by adding new content all the time.. 0.o .. so I keep having to add more stuff. This is not a project I have any intention of publishing or blogging about, just a little personal mission of mine.
• “Project Two” – Sunset Valley Remodel – This is a fun one, but again, it’s been very time consuming, so I tend to work on it in bits and pieces. I’ve put hours upon hours of work into it, however, so I have no intention of stopping until it’s done. I’m finally starting to get some of the finished product up onto the exchange, though, and expect to see more soon. I really like the look of what I’ve got done, and all the pending ideas for builds I haven’t finished or started are really exciting. (the not started ones are very few in number.. the town is mostly built up, I’m just doing a lot of testing and refining now…)
• “Shady Oaks Trailerhood” Project – this is a new project for me, and one I’m more or less just dabbling in at the moment. Whether it actually ends up in a publishable custom world.. well, we’ll see. Being a perfectionist has it’s downsides.. and if it doesn’t turn out well, it will likely just get scrapped. However, I figure I’d mention it, and as it’s being worked on, post some pictures and such.. just because I can.
• “Mystery” Project – This was mentioned last September too. I just have had it “shelved” for quite a while. That’s not to say I haven’t still been thinking of it.. I’ve got half a small notebook and a few computer files of lists of ideas for this, and I’m still working on it. Suffice it to say.. I’m dabbling with creating my own Sims 3 Challenge.. in the form of a story. And it involves Gnomes. Those are the only clues you get. 😉 I have recently resurrected the affiliated game-save file, though, and there’s a good possibility I’ll start blogging about it soon. (I just really want to get some other stuff caught up on here first.)
• More projects?? Nooo.. I have too many things going already!! However, I will mention that I am also still working on collecting achievements/badges. Have some 170ish badges left to go (I’ll update this with an exact number when I get back in game here in a few..)

Challenges

• “Spectres of the Past” (NiF/Apocalypse) – My most important/story driven challenge to date. It’s long overdue for me catching up on the story, since my game save is WAY ahead of what I have blogged (but never fear, I have it journal’ed and lots of screenshots taken to write with!)
• “Falcon Apocalypse” Challenge – Yeah, I know, this one should probably have a better name.. but I never came up with one, and have been calling it this for long enough that it just stuck. The family name is “Falcon”, and it’s a straight-up Apocalypse challenge, so that’s where the name came from. I’ve been playing it for quite a while now on and off, and have a nice daily journal on it in my sims notebook, so it shouldn’t be too hard to set up a mini blog following what’s going on with some pictures. Not going to write a story about it, but a gameplay journal with pictures is easy enough to do, and fun to look back on.
• “Castaway Shores” NiF Challenge – This is the newest of all of these challenges.. and one I’m really looking forward to. I’ve been missing the “NiF” challenges for such a long time, and the whole idea of doing one in the Island Paradise world as a castaway was too much to resist. I have the very beginnings of the story published now, and plan to continue with it as time allows.
• “Those Crazy Irish” MacRae ISBI Challenge – This is the oldest of all the challenges I still have running. Or, well, recently unearthed. ISBI stands for “I’m Surrounded By Idiots” and it’s a fun little exercise in being as “hands off” micromanaging my sims as I think I could possibly stand. Easy to play (except for always wanting to fix things going wrong when I can’t because the rules forbid it!!), it’s a good break from other challenges and daily life stresses, so I finally pulled the save out of my backup file and am busily updating it. Overall, it’s by far the funniest game I play, so it makes for a fun story with silly pictures.
• “All My UN-Natural Children” Supernatural Orphanage Challenge – the premise of this one hasn’t changed much in the last year. It’s a victorian-themed “Supernatural Orphanage” challenge – to be blogged in commentary style. Daughter picked this challenge out for me to do and helped make the characters – I wanted to really get to know the new supernaturals. Major goal is to survive generation one and get all the munchkins married off with an heir – but I may extend it to a 5 generation challenge just for fun. I keep having trouble getting my game to not crash with mods in the last few weeks (months) and since it’s an over-stuffed household, it’s sort-of on “hold”. Fairly sure I’ve still got all the old pictures and such laying around, though, so I’ll see if I can’t get them posted here soon.
• “Gardner LTW” Challenge – This one I’m working on side-by-side with my daughter’s Sims 2 LTW Challenge, and scoring against each other, so I don’t work on this one all that much, just when we’re both playing together. I may end up posting a “little” scorecard for this, but it won’t be really blogged about. We’ve complete the first generation, and are just getting started on the second generation, so there’s a long way to go yet.
• Random Legacy Challenge – completely un-started, I have too much going on already. Since I plan to put it in Sunset Valley, this will not get started until my “Sunset Valley Remodel” project is fully complete (see above for more info on that).
• 50 Foals Challenge – This will be the next challenge I start when I have a slot open up for it. I keep myself to only five challenges actively running at a time (plus the one with my daughter).

From my original page on this story: “First of all, I know it’s mis-spelled.  I did it on purpose.  Poetic license! Second, the title will be explained in due time.

I came up with the idea after downloading a beautifully evocative world called “Silent Hill” (yes, based off the games) from the Sims Exchange – found here if you’re interested.  I promptly tossed the idea out and kept looking.  Hours later, after coming back to the idea many times, and finally having a brainstorm session with my husband where the story was fleshed out some more, I finally decided this was what I was going to go with.  I really wanted to get another “Nothing is Free” challenge going (rules on Mod the Sims here) .. and this time I wanted to START with a story, not the challenge itself.  (I started with the challenge last time, and then had to come up with a semi-lame story after the fact when I decided to start blogging it.)  However, this was where the complications showed up.  For the story to work, I’m going to have to get a bit.. well.. creative.  The world is a lovely sad and ruined world, perfect for a lonely sim who thinks they just might be the last sim alive to try to rebuild humanity… er.. simanity.  However, that means the play is going to be a bit more complicated.  I’ve always wanted to try an Apocalypse challenge (rules found on it’s wiki here) .. but never been brave enough to actually start one.  I read over the rules fairly carefully, and if I modify several key things (the big one is going to be the fact that there ARE no rabbit holes to start with in the world – and I’m going to make a really tough choice to also force a NO OTHER SIMS! in the world to start with as well.)  Not to completely spoil the story, I will let you discover that as we go.. but this challenge could very well end before it begins if the random chance gods of sims don’t help me out before my founder dies. (yikes!)“

This is the only Sims 3 game I’ve attempted to go back to since Sims 4 came out. I still have the save file, but the issue is still the same. I was going to need to force the save past bugs with cheats, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to just for the sake of the story. Maybe someday.

Just posting that I’m once again working on my Nothing is free/Apocalypse challenge. I’ve got some more to write up and post into the first chapter, which I’ll be posting in the next couple days. What I’ve updated is the “welcome” page – mostly the rules and exceptions at the bottom of the page.

<< Previous

Katie’s Diary

Day Two:

Waiting for dawn… it always takes the longest when you can’t seem to sleep soundly.  Finally, I was able to hurry to the Junkyard in hopes of finding .. something to alleviate the horrid singed smell emanating from my body. After several hours of search, I found a cabinet in the shed there that held some “Shower in a Can” for fire emergencies at the Junkyard.  Still feeling guilty about “stealing” stuff, I only took two.  One for now, one for later emergencies.

By this time, my stomach was growling rather loudly, and it was actually cramping from hunger, so I hurried back home for my one daily bowl of soup… Chicken noodle.. cold.. again.  Yum?  .. no, not really.

Cold Soup… mmm… blech.

Immediately after breakfast (lunch and dinner!), I hurried back to my workbench. After clearing away the dust and ashes from yesterday’s adventure, I was ready to .. well.. begin anew.  This time I wasn’t just going to dabble around, I was actually going to attempt to build something.  (I have to do something with all this free time I have, right? .. and maybe if I get good enough, I can find a way to learn about what happened or find out if I really am alone… maybe.)

So. Paving the road with my good intentions, I set to work.  .. And worked.  And worked…. and then.. AHHHHH

fire! .. on my butt?

Hurriedly I grabbed the spare Shower in a can I had filched from the graveyard, and ….

Ahhhh.. cleanliness is next to inflammability.

Not to be deterred this time, I very determinedly went back to work inventing.. something.. anything.  A piece here, a piece there, some careful blowtorch work, banging on it (and my thumb), tightening bolts and screws.  It was starting to look like… a … Llama? .. Okay, we can work with that.  Being hungry myself, I added him a nice bowl of .. something for a metal Llama to eat.. and wa-la.  My first thing-a-ma-jiggy!!

Norman, my only friend

Well… I think I’ll call him Norman.  He can sit by my lonely dinner table and make it less… er.. lonely.  I hope.  Feeling rather sad, I went to the other end of my hut to take care of necessary business.. and wouldn’t you know it.. with the way my day is going — I broke the toilet. I sat down on my bed and cried for a while, but that seemed pointless, so then Norman and I had a conversation about where things stood in our little non-world.  We didn’t exactly come to any conclusions, however, so I went back to the scene of my immediate problem.. the toilet monster.

I contemplated, I muttered to myself… I racked my brain.. and then, just because, I couldn’t help simply screaming at it.  It made me feel better at least, although it didn’t appear to unclog the toilet.  It held the unrelenting silence back a little bit, as well.  During my rant.. I suddenly remembered the toilet plunger in my parent’s bathroom.  Checking the light outside, I saw that I had JUST enough time to race over and get it.  I didn’t think they’d mind, under the circumstances.

Screaming at the toilet monster

Trying to remember what dad had always done for this problem, I started “plunging away” … I made a big mess and seemed to take forever, but eventually, I got it fixed.  My one GOOD accomplishment for the day.  Yay!  On that note, while I still had brain power, I decided to read a little of one of the handiness manuals in my book shelf — perhaps I would be better prepared next time. .. Maybe.  I finished the afternoon off with a round of darts – at the dartboard, not my glorified pantry/refridgerator.  I was so hungry.. but I wouldn’t let myself falter.  I couldn’t eat until after midnight.  I’d made a promise.  One meal a day.  Gooo darts!  .. I think I actually even got a little bit better…. maybe.

Day Three:

Apparently all my good intentions aside, I didn’t stay up for my soup at midnight, I ended up curling up in bed (after pulling a few darts out of the covers) and falling into a fitful sleep.  Shortly after dawn, my belly woke me up and I forced down more cold Chicken Noodle soup.  There HAD to be something better out there!  Feeling refreshed, I put on my very best and went to check out the old diner’s supplies.  Maybe they had something useful.

The Town’s old Boxcar Diner

Apparently, locked doors are not impressed by formal wear, and they had some sort of shielding on the windows, so I couldn’t break them.  Sighing heavily, I decided to check the back shed door, and wandered through the mist around the boxcar to it.

The diner’s storage shed

Somehow, in their rush to go…. wherever they went, the diner employees hadn’t fully shut the door, so I went in and looked around.  It took several trips since I had to keep running outside for air due to the rotten food fumes, but I at least explored as much as I could.  Couldn’t find anything in the way of food, however, under one of the counters by the cooktop, I found an unopened four pack of showers-in-a-can.  .. Someone obviously hadn’t been a very good cook here, and they’d been prepared.

Packing those up, I made a short detour by the junkyard for some more scraps and ideas for another invention.  Ideas running around my head, I hurried home to try my hand at the inventor’s bench again.  Things went considerably better today, and I didn’t have a single mishap while building what I’ll just call a “Claw Dipper”.  I took it upstairs and attempted to use the lever action with the claw to help pull apart stubborn parts in the inoperable radio and phone.  All to no avail, of course.

After a rather lengthy debate with myself, I decided studying some more handiness might help me out in the long run, and I finished reading the basic handiness book.  Too hungry and tired to do much else other than think of midnight when I could once again eat my daily ration, I read one of the three paperback books I’d stolen from the school – “Where’s Bella?”.  It seemed appropriate.  Then, for lack of anything better to do, I took a nap until it was time to eat at midnight.

studying handiness

Day Four:

Started off the “day” at midnight with no sleep, but a VERY welcome bowl of .. yes.. again.. Chicken soup.  Feeling quite refreshed, I set about for the day’s inventing – and managed to come up with a floor hygiene-ator.. or at least the plans for one.  It certainly wasn’t going to work without electricity, though, so I sadly stored it away.  Feeling maudlin now, and since the sun had finally come up, I headed out to do more scrounging.

Back of the bistro

Again, I lucked out with the back door of the Bistro.  In haste to get away (I guess) they forgot to lock the door.  Going through their stocks I found several packages of well-protected crackers, some tightly sealed and wrapped in plastic jars of jelly and peanut butter.  Vaguely I remembered their new special had been some gourmet take on pancakes with PB and J.  Weird, since these weren’t exactly brand name products… I grinned evilly, and packed up my goodies.  On the way home, I stopped by my parent’s old house again – this time in search of a cookbook, and perhaps some information on food storage and safety after disasters.  I had no idea whether the goods I’d gotten were even going to be edible – or how to put them together.

scrounging in mom’s pantry

I did manage to find some information that looked promising on my new food stocks, and the cookbook I remember her using all the time, so I headed home.  Being back in my little underground bunker made me realize how badly I was smelling, but since I knew my “shower” resources were more than likely finite, I tried to avoid using them.  I tried desperately to concentrate on the cooking book, but couldn’t, tried taking a nap, and couldn’t even stay asleep.  My hunger had become almost a living thing… eating me from the inside.  But promises were promises, and to survive, I HAD to stick to my rationing plan.  Finally I buried myself in another of the paperbacks I’d snitched, “The Adventures of Raymundo” – which kept me occupied long enough to get me truly tired..

Reading a novel

and I finally fell asleep for a few hours.. and got some real sleep for the first time in days.

>> Next