Location: Undisclosed Virtual-Baby Superstore
Iggy's Note: At Babies R Us in real life, you buy things for a baby. In Second Life, however, you buy a baby, too.
Virtual pregnancy is enough a part of SL that a baby industry has emerged. The photos that Pappy Enoch sent back from this store tell the entire story.
Pappy, on the run from his evil sister, and inspired by a blog-post from our friends Tenchi and Cynthia, hatched (so to speak) a desperate plan: inflict a prim-baby on Jezz (and not, I'll add, in the usual Enoch Holler manner of running faster than she can). Details follow.
Store Announcer: Welcome to [name deleted] Baby Store
Pappy Enoch: cootchie coo, lil baby
Pappy: have sum Shine...makes yu grow up rite fast.
Li'l Susie: giggles when tickled!
Li'l Susie: thinks Pappy Enoch is funny.
Pappy: yep I is
Li'l Susie: 's eyes light up when Pappy Enoch smiles.
Pappy: awww this am cute
Li'l Susie: is loved by Pappy Enoch aww.
Pappy: yu am tu cute fo' Jezz
Pappy: she'd jist make yu grow up all mean
Li'l Susie: grips Pappy Enoch's finger tight.
Pappy: Susie, that am a cigar--don't touch
Pappy: She's tu dang cute. Let me try one o' these-here el-cheapo babies. Maybe a perambumerlator-thing tu roll it 'round in.
Bouncing Baby Buggy - Pushable: You aren't the owner or in the group. Go buy your own stroller.
Ema: I love daddy.
Pappy: I luvs yu tu, hunny bun. Hellfire n' hailstones! I luvs awl these fake babies. Dang, I jist cain't go thru wif this-hear plan!
Store Representative: May I help you, sir?
Pappy: Yep. I need tu git mah evil sistur intu a famberly way.
Rep: Um...okay. Full-term or instant baby?
Pappy: Full-term, I reckons. How long will that tie her down?
Rep: She can set the time of pregnancy.
Pappy: So no nine months?
Rep: Only if she wishes.
Pappy: So what if'n I give wun o' them econermy babies, alreddy born? Will she have tu take care o' it?
Rep: If she wishes. Some infants require that a parent feed and care for their child.
Pappy: Regular-like?
Rep: Yes. Those children cost more.
Pappy: How much?
Rep provides a figure
Pappy: HOO WHEE! I only got 23 Linden dollurs. Ya'll take barter here?
Rep: Barter? For what?
Pappy: Wun dawg (well fed), 1988 Ford F-150 (it du run, mostly), an' 100 jugs o' 190 proof White Lightnin' tu. What will that git mee?
Rep: The door. Let me show you the way out.
Pappy soon found himself back in front of his trailer.
Pappy: Dang it! Fake babies am mo' spensive n' a good shotgun. I reckon we am a gonna shoot it out!
As alway Pappis investigational journalism uncovered the whole sad truth.
ReplyDeleteThey are making huge sums with babies but (which is human trafficing in a way ain´t it?) have no sense of humor.
how sad
T
She should have taken the deal. Geez....in RL people are trying to give away their babies, for alot less. LOL
ReplyDeleteIs Pappy speaking with an avatar or a store bot? I'm still astonished that AI can decode Pappy's flavorful dialect! And who would refuse a trade for some of his hellfire in a jug?
ReplyDeleteSo, what happens if Jez abandons the baby? Is there some penalty, like the infant turning into a Banshee and shrieking circles around her head?
Haha, "full term or instant baby"?
ReplyDeleteInstant baby - just add hot water.
Anyway, being a sales rep in that "industry" (for lack of a better word) obviously doesn't mean you have to be nice. I'd boycott this store from now on - if I had ever intended buying a prim baby, of course.
Cynthia
Lee, you know from an e-mail the answer to the first Q: not a bot.
ReplyDeleteBut to your second, I find that the entire idea of prim-babies troublesome. I think Cynthia said this at her and Tenchi's "Amazing Dicoveries" blog that inspired Pap--some SL moms abandon their babies when a relationship ends. They put it in the SL trash folder and empty it.
That's sad in multiple ways! Jezz, however, is not so heartless. She says she'd either "train that-thar young'un to fite pole-cats fo' munny, o' leave it on the hood o' Pap's Ford--becuz that boy gots himself a soft spot fo' chirren."