Hey hey hey! Wookiee back with another WDTCF for your enjoyment. I still have a broken game but that’s not gonna stop me from writing for my favorite readers. Things can’t always go your way and you know what they say…
“When life gives ya lemons, make lemonade.”
How many times have you heard this ridiculous saying? Who they heck are THEY anyways? Just today, my teenage Ewok came home and told me this. She didn’t have an answer for me when I asked what to do when life gives me poop. Ah teenagers, they think they’re so wise.
Anywho… I find inspiration in so many little things and decided it was time to do a WDTCF for the Lemon Tree in our TSTO towns.
The Lemon Tree is a unique decoration in TSTO that can only be obtained in a mystery box. Every 5 days, you have a 10% chance of winning this decoration. It generates $200 and 20 XP every 6 hours which is pretty sweet for a decoration. Once upon a time in the early stages of the game, your neighbors could steal your tree and after 24 hours you could steal it back. Why EA scrapped this feature is up to debate. Current rumor is that EA didn’t like the idea of neighbors “stealing” from each other.
The Lemon Tree comes to us in the Simpsons in Season 6, Episode 24: Lemon of Troy. I love this episode and its Springfield vs. Shelbyville plot line.
The episode starts with Bart. He happens across some wet cement and gets caught by Marge writing his name in it. At home, she scolds him and tries to instill some Springfield Pride in her son. I personally don’t blame Bart… wet cement is very tempting but am I really wearing my town if I wear something with its name on it?
Marge’s parenting works and Bart is off to admire the town. He runs across Milhouse selling lemonade. Where does he find his produce? The answer is as easy as a quick little trip to the lemon tree!
At the lemon tree, they Springfield kids end up trading verbal taunts across the town boundary with some kids from Shelbyville. “I know you are but what am I” might be an endless cycle for garbagemen but “it takes one to know one” has always been the ultimate verbal checkmate. Why can’t the Shelbyville kids see that Springfield kids invented wearing backpacks over one shoulder? Jeesh… some people’s children.
Grandpa Simpson appears at just the right time to fill the kids in on the Lemon Tree’s origin story. The Springfield Lemon Tree dates back to frontier times. It all began back in the days of Jebediah Springfield and Shelbyville Manhattan. The two partners would have settled a town together but disagreed over whether they should be able to marry their cousins.
This age-old disagreement (according to one of my good military buds this is why there are 2 Virginias in the USA) results in the two separate towns of Springfield and Shelbyville being established. The lemon tree was planted to mark the day of Springfield’s birth.
Cool, eh?
Soon after this, while the Springfield kids are in school (you never know when learning roman numerals may come in handy, like when your locked in a tiger feeding area for instance), the lemon tree is stolen and the tracks go unto Shelbyville.
As a part of their town and the backbone of their economy, the children make the decision to go into their rival town and get it back. Of course Bart is the leader of the teuton invasion. Shelbyville is a weird place. Once weekly newspapers, yellow fire hydrants, Fudd Beer, the Speed-E-Mart, Joe’s Bar, statues honoring illegal incest… what a bunch of backwards cousin humpers.
Bart goes undercover with the Shelbyville kids to try and discover where the lemon tree is. It’s as easy as putting on a Beatles-esque wig and a fake facial scar. When the kids try to get Bart to spray paint Springfield Sucks on the bluffs, he ends up writing Springfield Rules Suckers instead. He is Bart Simpson after all, the kid with excellent spray paint hand control.
The Springfield kids end up finding the lemon tree at a car impound lot aka “the impenetrable fortress of Suburbia”. They can’t get it back and are foiled. Even with the help of their parents they can’t get it back. Could this be the end of the lemon tree, an icon from the time of Springfield’s Forefathers?
Nah… all it takes is parking Ned’s camper in a hospital zone and getting towed. The kids and parents rescue the lemon tree, escape a killer guard dog and make it out of the impound lot before the gate closes.
“Eat my shorts Shelbyville! EAT… MY… SHORTS!”
Sure the RV and tree take some damage, but this episode is all about the importance of town pride. Are you proud of your town? Got a lemon tree to prove it? Shelbyville can shake their fists as hard as they want… Springfield Rules!
Well, hope you enjoyed this little slice of a Simpsons back story for TSTO. TTFN… Wookiee out!
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