The Play's The Thing

I was sleeping ever-so-soundly when wrested from bed by the kids who, it seemed, had been hard at work writing a play for the enjoyment of one and all. I was dragged to the living room, where my computer was propped on one chair, and the "set" on another. They had somehow figured out how to use iTunes to play the radio and had selected for their needs a station called—and this is something I could not make up if I tried—"Whisperings: Piano Music to Quiet Your World." Here is the set (the object on the right is supposed to be a microphone and it is, indeed, made of one sad pipe cleaner and a wad of tin foil):



As "Whisperings: Piano Music to Quiet Your World" played in the background, Vida raised the microphone and began to narrate the story (in, really, the most hilariously soothing voice EVER) as her sisters manipulated the characters. The title of the piece was "Friends Care," and had only a passing connection to the content. The story arc was thus:

- a caterpillar and snail are best friends.
- they play tag, catch, and "racing" (I keep myself from commenting that snails and caterpillars are not physically capable of catching anything, and that a game of tag or a race between the two would be monuments to the word "slow").
- they feel they can "tell each other anything."
- then caterpillar suddenly grows sleepy and attaches himself to a branch.
- snail tries repeatedly to wake him, but to no avail.
- a girl enters the scene and plays with the snail, but it's just not the same (I keep myself from commenting that perhaps it's a size issue that causes the problem).
- a butterfly suddenly appears and says, "Want to play?"
- snail says, "But I don't know you."
- butterfly says, "Yes, you do! I'm caterpillar."
- snail says, "No. Only caterpillar is caterpillar."
- this exchange continues for several minutes until at last the snail realizes that "bugs change, just like people" and that the butterfly really is the caterpillar.
- but snail says they still can't play together because he, the snail, can't fly.
- at this point, the random girls re-enters and gives him some wings.
- the flying snail and butterfly resume their friendship.

And I resumed my sleep, but not before noting sadly to myself that their story is better than anything I've written yet this summer.