The unthinkable has happened.

I, the world's biggest fan of "The Sims" games since before they actually hit shelves, am bringing "The Sims 2 University" back to the store and asking for my money back. And if I could, I'd sue Electronic Arts.

I have spent the past six months enjoying "The Sims 2." I made a sim of myself and put it through medical school while it popped out a few kids. I made an family of attractive, overachieving sims for those kids to marry. I made a nice little Swedish couple and had the mom pop out six little ones in short order. I made a husband-and-wife team of libidinous French sims and let them find out about each other's affairs with the maid. I made a family of impoverished, ugly, ill-tempered sims and orphaned their children, fucking them up for life.

Those were glorious days.

Then, when it was time for the kids to seek out higher education, I installed The Sims 2 University -- making sure, of course, to back up my "The Sims 2" folder and to check whether I met all system requirements.

Alas, the expansion pack would not work. I would select a family or try to add a new one, only for the load screen to stay up for hours on end.

So I did what anyone with common sense would do. I increased my virtual memory and moved all my downloaded files (even though they were all skins and no hacks) into a quarantine folder. Still no dice.

In desperation, I pulled out the big guns. I uninstalled both the expansion pack and the original game, deleted all leftover neighborhood files just in case, and did a fresh reinstall. Without first adding in any of my old backed-up files, I checked The Sims 2 to make sure it was working. Everything was great. Then I installed the Sims 2 University.

With bated breath, I clicked the button to add a family. What followed was 20 minutes of load screen. However, in the morning, was I greeted by happy little simmies? Nope. This worthless game was still stuck on the load screen.

Apparently, according to many a frustrated simmer on The Sims 2's bulletin boards, some early shipments of the University expansion pack simply do not work.

But it gets worse -- oh yes! Apparently the neighborhood files are not kept in the Sims 2 folder as I had thought; they are inexplicably stored in a folder in My Documents which is overwritten when you install an expansion pack.

Goodbye, my poor little Heather sim, who worked so hard to become a physician .... only to be obliterated by a buggy, ill-designed expansion pack.

Adieu, French sims! How I will miss you and your little indiscretions! Will the maid ever catch you in flagrante delicto in the hot tub again?

Farewell, Elke Olafssen, and all those damned sim babies I had to force you to feed while you were hovering dangerously close to a nervous breakdown. I guess I will have to start your family anew.

I will miss you guys.

As for The Sims 2 University, I will be waiting a year until they are done using people who paid $40 and expected working software to finish their beta testing. In the meantime, I will spend my refund on 30-odd bags of Whoppers Robin Eggs, a far superior product in which I will attempt to drown my sorrows. If I had just done that in the first place, I would still have all my beloved little sims.