Mitch Lawson (Captain Fireman) is a Family Sim. He loves his four daughters very much, but he's recently reconciled himself to the fact that their mother is never going to settle down and be his life's companion.

(In fact he fell out of love with Sally the other day on a downtown lot, when he and Sally and a few of her other lovers were all hanging autonomously about, and Sally flirted with one of them right out in public. Lots of slapping ensued!)

Although he gets along well enough with his female housemates, they're no more than friends. Even though Christy Stratton (yet another of Sally's lovers) is also Family and you'd think they'd be compatible, there's just never been a spark.

Then the other day Ally Pedersen from downtown called up out of the blue and asked him on a date. (I can't recall how they met in the first place; it may have been autonomously on that same community lot. His daily with her was up in the sixties somewhere when she called.)

"Well, I don't know Ally. I mean I'd love to but -- oh sure, what the heck! But you don't mind -- I mean -- you know I have a fami -- my daughters...?"

"Oh sure, Mitch, everyone knows about that!"

"They do?"

"Yeah, you're like one of the Founding Fathers of the neighborhood!"

"Um, wow, okay. Can we meet downtown? I don't want to upset the twins."

And although it was odd being with a woman other than Sally, and he took things very slowly (no romantic interactions at all), by the end of the date he and Ally were Best Friends.

Not long after, Mitch called Ally and invited her downtown.

When the happy couple emerged temporarily sated from the booth, I noticed that once again both Mr. Big and The Diva were on the lot. Continuing our previous theme, Mitch pointed them out to each other.

For most of the rest of Mitch's visit to the lot, the two were all over each other.

Too bad there isn't an "Influence to... woohoo..." verb. *8)

The date with Ally was going marvelously. A wild notion came into Mitch's head, and before he could have any sane second thoughts, he acted.

The onlookers were impressed.

Now of course, as we noted above, Mitch and Ally have the same problem that Joe and Mackenzie did in a previous episode: Sally still loves Mitch, so Sally's relatives (including Mitch's daughters) will be enraged if they see Mitch being romantic with his new love.

Fortunately, on their next date, Sally herself happened to walk past at an opportune moment.

"How dare you!"

"Oh come on, Sally, get a grip. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander, ya know?"

Sally went away furious, but no longer jealous.

So that, I hope, took care of that.

Mitch drove Ally back to the Casa (or maybe this was their next date; I don't actually remember).

Later, with Mitch peacefully snoring away, Miss Pedersen went out and played some contemplative chess on the front porch.

She eventually left, and came back later to leave the inevitable bouquet of roses.

So Mitch is nicely established with Ally (although we can't move her in until the twins go off to college or something, because the Casa is full), but we can hardly leave him and the mother of his children at odds. So Sally invited him over to talk.

And after a nice long soak in the tub...

So Casa Townie is all paired up (Joe and Mackenzie, Arcadia and Melissa, Mitch and Ally, Rose and Aaron, Dawn and various), except for Christy Stratton. Hm, maybe we should actually try out the Gypsy Matchmaker sometime...