When I was little my cousin used to come over fairly frequently. There was a bit of a ritual to the visits. When she arrived we would sing her nickname to the tune of Batman. We'd maybe play a game or two of hide and seek then my brother would ditch us and we'd play dolls or the Game of Life. Without fail, we would inevitably decide that the best possible thing we could do to entertain ourselves and the adults (or insects as we called them at the time) would be to perform a play. I remember sensing that the novelty had worn off rather quickly as our disinterested audience would sigh and look on (I'm sure this wasn't the case the first time we came up with this brilliant idea) but that didn't stop us from performing again and again.
I have to admit, though, that I never really appreciated the tedium until today when I sat through two dozen plays. The first one was adorable, the second one was pretty cute too, even the third one was decent, but by the time I watched a fourth plot-less play I understood. I understood exactly why those plays were the cue every time for "oh dear, look at the time we really should get going." This, of course, would be followed by another ritual on our part - the hiding of the cousin. Thankfully Hunter has been performing his plays solo - they're puppet shows really and there really isn't much need to hide the puppets because that would be too much like cleaning his room.
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