My Secret Parallel Life

It's confession time, here at "One Dad's Life."  You see, I've been leading something of a double-life since the end of November last year. 

Most evenings and some weekends, after rehearsals, dance classes, and lessons are all over, I slip off to tend to my other household in "Rosebud."  I'm always looking for new furniture pieces to decorate my house in Rosebud with, and I spend a lot of time looking for treasures to donate to the local museum.  In fact, I'm a pretty big philanthropist in Rosebud, though I have yet to have something named after me.  I was even responsible for getting a much needed additional bridge over the river that runs through town built!

Rosebud is my town in Nintendo's "Animal Crossing: City Folk" game for the Nintendo Wii, and I'm addicted.

There is so much to collect and do in the game, but I've mainly focused on finding items the museum needs to complete their collection.  The local museum has four main collections that I am trying to complete.  There is the fish collection - live, of course, the fossil collection, and the rare painting collection.  Finally, there is the BUG collection.   Here is where Nathan and "abunslife" should now find another blog to read today, because this is going in a direction you don't want to see!

The bug collecting has been driving me crazy.  You see, there are a number of rare bugs that are hard to find, and don't wander through town too often.  Two of the rare bugs for the summer months are even scarier, as they ATTACK you.  BAD BUGS!  In fact, you can just be running around town, minding your own business when out of the blue, you are attacked.  Some time later, you wake up in front of your house, wondering what hit you.  I'll tell you what hit you - either a scorpion or a tarantula. That's right, SCARY bugs. (Nathan and "abunslife", if you are still reading, you only have yourself to blame!)

Here's the problem:  I want to complete the museum's collection, including the bugs.  Certain bugs are available only at certain times of day and certain days of the year, just like in "real" life.  While I had managed to catch a scorpion, I was seriously running out of time on the tarantula.  They were only out at night (maybe), and they would disappear from Rosebud at the end of August.

August was ending and I had no tarantula!  If I didn't catch one, I'd have to wait until next summer.  I did not want this to happen.  So, after several failed attempts at catching the huge beast, I was running out of time and panic was increasing.  Would Nintendo cancel my subscription to "Nintendo Power" if I failed?  I didn't know, but I didn't want to find out!

So, last Sunday night, I was determined to stay up until the bug was caught.  I was bold.  I started playing the game around 7 PM, my time.  In the game, that was 5 PM.   The game runs in real time, but I have it shifted a bit to accommodate my late-night availability.  Since the local shops close at 9:00PM, I need the time shift to actually get to accomplish anything in the game.

The end of August also signaled the end of many other rare (and valuable) bugs.  I already had these in the museum, but could sell any additional ones I caught to the local store for quite a bit of money.  I also figured that in order for the rare (and secretive) tarantula to appear, I'd have to catch a lot of bugs so their turn would come up in the random bug generator that is hidden deep within the Wii.

Over the course of the night, I DID in fact collect a large number of rare bugs.  I filled my house with them, actually.  All three floors!  Just like in my real life, I take a lot of pictures of my life in Rosebud.  Below is a picture of me standing in front of ONE floor full of rare bugs.   All in all, I collected almost 400,000 bells (the local currency) of rare bugs IN ONE NIGHT! Full disclosure - this picture was actually taken the day before in my second to last attempt at getting a tarantula.

Without getting into all the hairy spider details, when the tarantula was found, I stood still with my bug net at the ready.  The beast walked near me, not attacking, I waited, the bug waited. Then the bug wondered off.  I gave chase, but failed to catch it before it plunged into the nearest body of water, disappearing.  Rats.  I had failed again! Previously, I had only (at most) seen a single tarantula a night.  Failure to catch meant the day was over.  But, this was my last chance, so I decided to keep catching bugs and hope to find another.

Amazingly, shortly there-after, I DID run into another tarantula!  I was overjoyed.  However, the spider was near the ocean shore and just plunged in without me even getting close.  Still, I was encouraged, because if there were two spiders, there could be three, right!

Finally, I spotted another tarantula around midnight local time (a bit after 2 AM St. Louis time).  I waited, bug net at the ready.  The spider came close to me.  It didn't actually seem quite right, though, so I didn't swing. Swinging and MISSING was a fatal mistake with these bugs.  I didn't want to wake up all groggy later on wondering what happened...again.  The spider started wandering off.  OH NO!!!!  In a moment of panic, I went against my plan, raced forward and swung the net recklessly.

I ACTUALLY CAUGHT THE BUG!!!

There may have been shouts of joy coming from my living room, but I couldn't guarantee it.  Still I was incredibly happy at this amazing turn of events.  I wouldn't be losing my "Nintendo Power" subscription!

So what do you do at major life events like catching the dreaded and rare tarantula?  You take pictures of course!  So, without further ado...

Here I am standing in front of my house with my prized tarantula!

Here I am on the bridge I worked so hard to get built in town with my prized tarantula!

 

Here I am with the town mayor with my prized tarantula. THE MAYOR.  He's a turtle. Try not to stare.

 

Finally, it came time to part with my prize.  Ultimately, it belonged in the museum with the other bugs, not crawling around in my pocket.  I'm sure you can agree!  So, here I am donating the bug to the curator of the museum. He's an owl.

Parting with the bug was bitter-sweet.  After all that time hunting, I was reluctant to give up my prize.  However, I felt good about my donation.   In any case, I could always visit in the museum with the other bugs I've donated, right?  Life is good!

Comments

[Gregg's Mom]

This is unbelieveable!

[Gregg]

Believe it!

[Mel]

Okay. Yikes. LOL The part I can relate to is spending time in a parallel universe. I think everyone does that. Sort of.

[Nathan]

I'm okay with pretend cartoon spiders, it's the real ones that bother me.