With the COVID-19 pandemic still keeping people inside for most of their time every day, many people have turned looking for community and solace in what has historically been the most reliable source for such things: Animal Crossing. With the release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons coinciding with stay inside orders and self-quarantine practices, more people than ever have decided to take the plunge and try out the adorable real-time neighbor simulator. Your friends from college, the bartender at your favorite watering hole, 9 snails working as a team on a Nintendo Switch, and even your stepmom, Judy – everyone has taken to Animal Crossing.

Including vice president, Mike Pence.

However, the play experience has been a bit different for the conspicuously moth-like VP, who insists on not allowing any women to visit his island, nor visiting theirs, unless his wife is present.

“I’m a happily married, Christian, human man,” Pence explained when Eritas reached out. “That means I live by a certain set of values and standards. This is just a matter of accountability.”

Vice president Pence’s island, “Penceton,” a pun on noted Ivy League College, Harvard, comes equipped with a standard Dodo Airlines airport like all Animal Crossing islands, but he keeps his gates closed. “It’s bad enough that my island’s native fruit is peaches. Even when I’m just trying to collect shells on the beach, I find myself surrounded by evocative imagery,” Pence remarked before proceeding to dig up a fossil from the dirt. The vice president broke into a cold sweat as the shovel made its signature “shwik” sound which, combined with the image of a hole, seemed to be all too lusty an event for his moral sensibilities.

Wanting to leave no avenues open for temptation, Pence recalled evicting some of his animal neighbors in order to ensure that his island only had male company. “It was hard to send Claudia away since she was one of my starting neighbors, but I just couldn’t risk it. Sure, she stood in the public plaza most of the time, but what happens when she catches me by the river when Louie the gorilla isn’t nearby? Me alone with a pink tiger who always sends me street lamps in the mail, compulsively says “ooh la la,” and has great taste in interior decoration? I’m not rolling those dice, buddy.”

Vice president Pence did admit that his commitment has made the play experience more difficult, as to progress in the game, he must interact with Isabelle, a female dog in the island’s main office. “I’ll start to have a conversation, but then Tom Nook will look away, and at that point, it might as well be me and that dog on our own, and who knows what could happen then?”

When reached for comment, Karen Pence told Eritas, “I really don’t care. I think all the little characters are adorable, and it seems like a fun way to be with friends.”

“I know what I have to do,” vice president Pence concluded. “And more importantly, I know what I have to not do. I just thank God that K.K. Slider is a guy.”