Sure, the new Life and Death expansion for The Sims 4 is pretty creepy, but its hidden strength is its hardcore Tony Soprano RPG.

There are no ducks in my pool.

There have never been ducks in my pool. Honestly, I don’t even know if there are ducks Sims 4 would have hit the same way as the ones I handed over at the old place. But I still miss them.

Why? Will you stop asking me these things? The question “why with you” always comes back. Yes, I know that you are my psychiatrist and that is why you live on the balcony of my house, take my money and sleep in this coffin that I bought for you because I thought it would be funny, but you don’t understand. No, I haven’t passed out recently.

Okay, I yelled at a stuffed bunny that looked a little like a skeleton, and I may still be making a fuss about a ghost version of Alcoholics Anonymous, but I’m in control. Things are going well at work. Look, you know I can’t tell you much about what I do for a living, but I told you I’m in the recycling business, right? Yes, not a criminal, because we are better than petty criminals, but part of… an organization… that takes care of everything.

It’s a family business, the boss is this old man, and he has a very set approach to business. He believes very strongly in tradition, just like me. The idea that people do what they have to do. He seems to like me, probably because I know how to tread lightly when someone gets confused. What? You won’t be able to prove that I ever touched the scythe – try interviewing witnesses, I promise they will only say good things about me.

I guess it’s very Catholic, even if I don’t quite remember where in the Bible the whole feeding of collected souls into a giant portal to the underworld was. I have to ask Carmella, she’s more into this shit than I am, although I obviously still believe and I’m damn sure Meadow and Anthony Jr. are too.

You know, this is important, even if at this point it is becoming increasingly difficult to hide the harsher realities of working in the Underworld Death Department from them. They grow and begin to create more and more complex moodlets of their own. It probably won’t help that Paulie and Chris live with us – along with you and my mother – but what’s a guy going to do? We had to move here to fucking Ravenwood from New Jersey. I wanted to go to Vegas or Arizona, somewhere sunny, but no, the feds were turning up the heat and we were stuck in a city they’d never heard of. The one with ghosts, crypts galore, and a damn tree that whispers to you.

I even had to bring you, Dr. Melfi. Oh shut up, you know you didn’t want to go back to that motel you were hiding in last time. Plus, there are a lot of weirdos to talk to here. This Lane Coffin, don’t get me started. Don’t look at me like that, he’s just one of those happy-go-lucky idiots we were talking about back then.

Either way, he’s the least of my problems. Yes, this is my mother. You know, I had to relent and let her live with us when we moved here, even though she’s dead to me. Well, we didn’t get along and now she’s literally dead to me. What are you looking at? No, Lord, of course I didn’t do it, I loved this woman. You were there when it happened. She went for a swim in the pool around ten o’clock in the evening because for some reason she wanted to try to improve her exercise skills.

Next thing we know, boom, walls appear along the edges of the pool, keeping her in the water. She bobs there, screaming as we try to get to her, with all the necessary meters of her submerged in the water except her bladder. Forty minutes pass, and then the reaper appears. Somehow he takes her soul through the walls and she turns into a ghost.

Then, next thing you know, it’s gone, and so are the walls. There’s my mother floating through the foundation back into the house as if nothing had happened. Since then, she has essentially acted as normal, but continues to own furniture, levitate things, and jump on all of us. It’s really driving Paulie crazy, it’s driving me nuts, and the worst part is that I know I’m going to have to struggle when it comes to her things because she made a really weird will. Not that I needed any of it, especially that random lamp she made her family heirloom because she was still learning the mechanics. But you can bet that at some point Janice will show up and try to find the deeds to her old house.

Speaking of Janice, she didn’t come to the funeral. I offered to pay for her ticket out of Seattle, but she kept telling me that she had never heard of Ravenwood and couldn’t find it on a map. I told her you just open the menu, select worlds, and there you have it. Apparently it was too much for her, can you believe it?

Either way, we are all grieving. There are four different types, and I always get the angriest ones because I have a short temper. It’s not my fault, my father gave it to me. So, I keep going crazy, especially when I’m around her ghost. Others cope differently. Some of them continue to shout about it, cheer themselves up in front of the mirror, or even bathe sadly. The damn house doesn’t help because it has the “On Hallowed Grounds” feature, which in itself makes us feel uncomfortable.

The funeral seemed to help a little, we followed her wishes and kept a low profile. You know, a minute of silence so that people don’t have to look for nice words. No music. Lots of food. I managed to persuade the children not to shoot the memorial cannon, which I do not remember purchasing. A beautiful photo of her next to the coffin, then I took the urn and turned it into a headstone in the yard. Look, if you buy a house with a built-in cemetery, you’ll take advantage of it.

However, since then, my main concern has been about Christopher. You see, Paulie is just a mortician, and I let Moltisanti follow in my footsteps a little, becoming a make-up artist. One way or another, he noticed the look on Grim’s slab and now says that he will soon die and go to hell. That whole “Haunted by Death” character trait. This really worries Paulie, he thinks he might go to hell too. I even went to a psychic who did some strange things with Tarot cards. Now he collects them, reads them to people while eating Gabagul. The humming of TV commercial themes while he does this drives me crazy. If he wasn’t a good provider for the house, I might have to let him go.

It’s ok though. I just do it every day, working on my bucket list to try and find some happiness. I am doing well on my soul’s journey. Although I don’t know how I should criticize the world. Maybe that’s why I keep getting those moodlets that make me panic about my unfulfilled goals. I’m probably stressed out because I’ll have unfinished business that won’t let me move on no matter how much ghost mastery I gain.

You see, more than anything, I want those ducks to come back. But this is The Sims 4, and while this new addition is pretty cool, I didn’t buy it. Cottage Live more.

So there are no ducks in my pool.