The Crombies: Day Thirty-Six

Hello, and welcome back to another thrilling episode of the Scott and Nooreen Show! Uh. The Crombies, even!

'I can't believe you'd do this to me, Pyke. He's deranged - if he ever does finally face reality he'll probably go on a killing spree.'

'Come on, Noo-na, it's a laugh ain't it? He's not THAT bad-'

'The squares on this wallpaper remind me of spectacles... HER spectacles... mmm...'

'Dude- I apologise. I'll take you out to lunch sometime, my treat.'

'It had better be very, VERY expensive.'

'Oh, man, that Scott is so ugly! And- and he smells of eggs and moss! No one round here could like someone who smells like eggs and moss!'

'Forget it, Pyke, it's not going to work. He's blind to any kind of insult you can throw at him.'

'It smells of glory and manliness. Come on, baby, take a sniff.'

'Hear me out, dude- if I get him to leave the house before tomorrow night then you have to buy ME an expensive lunch. It's win-win for you, man.'

'You're on.'

'You are the goddamn sexiest oldie I've ever met. Have you got varicose veins? I wouldn't normally ask, but they get me rock hard so it's a little important.'

'Fuuuuuuuuuck.'

And with that exposition out of the way, we return to regular programming.

Catriona heads to work. We haven't been seeing much of her lately, have we? Catriona's slipped into a bit of a routine where she goes to work, comes back exhausted, sleeps, then wakes up and goes to work again. It's sad. At some point, I'll try to get her another charisma skill point so she'll be eligible for promotion. It's the only thing holding her back, and it might mean she gets to have a larger part in the Crombies' shenanigans if her schedule is different.

Jack's been staring at the wall for a while now. I hope he's OK.

Besides Scott's slightly menacing fixation on the action, I think the most amusing part of this picture is that Nooreen looks like she's rocking the fuck out. No, wait - the MOST amusing thing is that out of context it looks like Nooreen and Pyke are viciously beating the shit out of a chicken.

'Ladies, please! I'm not finished, here!'

'Dude, look, I didn't want to be so blunt about it but you've got to leave. We don't want you in the house anymore.'

'It's OK, Pyke, I get it.'

'Eh? Get what?'

'You're jealous. I've been giving Nooie so much of my attention you're wondering why you're not getting any. You wonder if you're pretty enough for a guy like me. So it's OK. I UNDERSTAND, you know?'

'Fuck no!'

Hey, don't sweat it, I can take good care of both of you, if you know what I mean. Nudge nudge, wink wink.'

'Not even if the belly of the Earth opened up and unleashed its hordes of demented, abhorrent creatures in an apocalyptic battle between Heaven and Hell and I only had a minute to savour existence before my very conscience was crystallised and tortured for all eternity by the foulest demons from the blackest pits would I EVER. EVER. Even CONSIDER what you are proposing.'

'NOOIE WOULD. BITCH.'

Jack, meanwhile, has finally cracked. He's been in a pretty bad mood recently and this went off the chart when a wolf - which he fears, apparently - passed by the front of Rainbow Cottage. How he managed to sense this from one of the few rooms in the house with no windows I have no idea.

No, he didn't hear it.

Wow, this took a turn for the grim.

'I hoped ve vould not haff to meet again, Mr Crombie. I am very, very disappointed.'

'You can't blame me! I'm just a hairdryer! BWAAAAAAA-'

'Hmm, I see. Tell me about your relationship with your mother.'

'BWAAAAAAAAAA BWAAAAAAAAAA BWAAAAAAAAAA.'

'And how does zat make you feel?'

'Listen carefully, Mr Crombie-'

'Hambrabble the Third!'

'-Mr Hambrabble. I vant you to look into zis spinning disc and do exactly vhat I ask.'

'Ha ha ha GONK.'

'Zen I count down from three, I vant you to go into a deep, relaxing sleep... and zen I vill say 'vake up!' you vill vake up and find yourself in total control of your facilities. You vill be a sane man! Now... Three! Two! One!'

'I'm a chicken! I'm a chicken!'

'Zat is not vhat I asked you to do.'

'Moo.'

'Give me all your sesame seeds, this is a stick-up! Ha ha ha ha!'

'Vake up, Mr Crombie! Vake up! For all our sakes!'

'Sweet sanity, I'm back!'

'Excellent, Mr Crombie, vell done. Remember not to let zings get on top of you next time. Volves are only overgrown doggies. Bye bye now.'

Well then! I'd better find something to cheer Jack up, before this happens again and it stops being amusing. All of Jack's wants are Pyke-related, but she's at work so we're going to have to go with the last one - becoming friends with Bertina?!

Well alrighty then.

The entire Ploop family is coming to visit! Joys of joys!

All Good Dogs Wander the Earth in Spectral Agony - the straight-to-DVD sequel.

Scott and Nooreen are going to work at the same time which means they have to share the same carpool. It's almost like he planned this all in advance.

First to arrive is Lesley Ploop. I forget whether we've encountered him before, but this guy is the result of Catriona's attempts to create the most feminine man she could manage.

I don't know what the hell's going on with the undead twin dogs.

Bertina and Nemo join us now! I might have enjoyed writing out some kind of conversation for them, but I didn't bother because we won't see them again much for reasons which will shortly become apparent.

Jack appraises the situation. No point getting cold feet NOW, Jack. YOU invited her.

'Room for one more, matron! Brrrrowwwwwwwr.'

'... I'm taking the front seat.'

Poor Jack. Unlucky in love and with two nervous breakdowns to his name, he slinks back to his last recourse: romantic relations with a paper plate stuck to a mop.

Sexy.

I need Jack to befriend Bertina so I send him on up to the rec room, but he is intercepted by a phone call.

'We have some... business matters to discuss.'

'Nooreen's not here. Who're you?'

'We just wanted to let her know we're not flaking on the deal we made. We've researched the mark's business schedule and we've got a big surprise coming to him while he goes to work.'

'I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'll let her know.'

Meanwhile...

'... but I suppose my main goal in life after marrying you is to maybe set up an old folks' home for sexy old grannies. I'd score like never before, baby! I can almost taste the wrinkles already...'

'Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up-'

'Hey, that woman's leaning right out of her car! That's dangerous on a motorway isn't it? She's holding something...'

'Almost looks like a bazooka from this distance.'

'That's all I have to say to yeh! Give Nooreen my regards an' tell her we expect payment within the week.'

And with that, Jack abandons his guests to go to bed. Since everyone is now either at work or sleeping, time speeds up and I lose track of the houseguests. No little message popped up to tell me when they left so I spent some time trying to track them down. But to no avail. Mysterious.

A few hours go by uneventfully... then Scott returns from work.

WOAH. No one told me judges were driven to and from work in limousines. Now I can see why this whole justice and law thing is so popular.

Scott wants to go to sleep. He wants to use the master bed but Jack's already in there and the idea of sharing sheets with the resident madman doesn't go down too well. The girl behind him is MJ Chumble! She agreed to a walk-on part but we didn't have the rights or cash to show her face.

Pyke returns from work and decides to have a good old sit down next to a snoozing Scott. For some reason.

Scott suddenly wakes up then goes straight to sleep again. Weird. Pyke gets up after this and... goes to bed.

Catriona returns home some time later... obfuscates her face because her agent's been playing hardball recently and then goes straight to bed.

Damn, this is turning out to be a boring day.

Jack wakes up and decides to muck about with Mrs Toffee for a bit. Is he playing favourites?!

Nooreen arrives home and falls asleep! WHAT AN UNEXPECTED TURN OF EVENTS!

(???)

What can I say? Sometimes you've just got to roll with the punches I guess.

Jack takes the time to check out the art adorning his bathroom's walls.

Not pictured: Jack booing his own painting.

For the next wee while Jack does some bowling which I've seen about a million times by this point. I wait for another sim to wake up - it's time to do something new and interesting.

To the photo booth! We've already put Nooreen in this thing but we've never seen photos with TWO sims in there! Scott and Jack will be our guinea pigs for this experiment.

'I am one handsome devil.'

What the fuck went on in there?!

Awwwwwwwwwwwwkwaaaaaaaaaaard.

The phone rings, and it's Harriet this time. Maybe I should have given her a housemate when I moved her. She clearly needs someone to talk to.

'Catriona! I have some new information regarding Nathen! He's been collecting bodies again... there are reports of hundreds of missing women in SimCity. He's planning something. Something BIG.'

'If he was gonna come, he'd have come already, Harriet. I'm beginning to think you're getting a kick out of scaring us about this all the time.'

'Just be careful. If he's doing what I think he's doing he'll be coming after you lot next. Unless...'

'Unless? Unless what?'

'I... nothing you need to worry about. I'll call again later. Bye.'

'Unless what?! HARRIET-' *click*

Catriona has a nervous breakdown. Two in one day?! I just spent the last four or five updates cheering you guys up!

Poor, poor Catriona. The most attention she's got all week and it's because she went insane. We've already seen this, so I didn't bother taking many screenshots. After Catriona returns to her normal self, she wanders off to have a bath (which Pyke broke earlier by the way...).

'Hey! You!'

'Ow! That hurt!'

'I want you to get the fuck out of the house RIGHT NOW. THIS INSTANT.'

'Hey, I've had a really rough day! My car blew up on the way to work, the bailiff called me a pansy and the cafeteria was out of egg rolls! Leave me alone!'

'I don't give a fuck- wait. Your car blew up? With you inside it?'

'Yeah. I had to walk!'

'But what do you care? You've hated me since day one! I've tried to fit in, God knows I've tried! But you throw it in my face! You don't like me! YOU NEVER LIKED ME!'

'Nope.'

'And you know that spinning top you brought because it was the first toy you ever owned? I fucking burned that spinning son of a bitch.

'NOOOOOOOOO!'

Catriona has been in the bathroom during all this. She's just... doing her own thing.

'You know what, Pyke? I'm going to stay here as long as I can just to spite you. And Nooreen WILL be mine. You don't want to mess with me, girly, I'm a judge. I've put away more criminals than you have hairs on your head.'

'No one gets between me and my Nooie. You try anything and I will FUCK. YOU. UP.'

'Oh Nooie, my heart yearns for you so! NOOOOIEEEEEEE! NOOOOOOOOIEEEEEEEE!'

'OK, this is getting too weird. Just fuck off? Please?'

Pyke's punching her palm with her fist here. Girl means business.

Pyke's just bitchslapped Scott! We have a fight, ladies and gentlemen! A fight!

Scott launches a counteroffensive! Oh my!

For fuck's sake, Jack. Get a grip.

Scott and Pyke are properly laying into each other now. Only one can win the fight though! Place your bets now!

The fighting animation was never designed to be viewed when paused...

The fight is nearing its end!

At first the results are, ah... unclear...

But the medal goes to Scott! Our congratulations go to the victor, beating up old ladies since 2009.

He looks so fucking proud of himself doesn't he?

'Aargh... you son of a fucking bitch. This isn't over. This isn't over by a long shot.'

'No. No it isn't.'

'The mother fucking ground! The motherfucking ground! Get on the motherfucking ground before I get a lead pointer all up in this bitch...'

Catriona needs some emergency cheering up before the doctor with the spinning disc arrives again. She wants to prank someone it seems... hmm...