The Neighbors' Play
Thursday, August 24, 2006 at 6:17 PM | Filed under neighbors
The little kids in my cul-de-sac decided that they're going to put on a play for us neighbors to watch tomorrow. I told them that the idea sounds good, and asked what their play's going to be about. This was hours ago, so let's see how close I get to what their actual story was. It's about this girl who's a maid and she doesn't like being a maid so she runs away and bumps into some poor girl and they both run away and then they run into a witch, and—that's when I stopped her. "Don't spoil the ending for me!" I said.
I asked them when they would be showing the play—they said, "6:30". I said that's awfully close to dinnertime, and they said that they themselves would be serving dinner for the audience. Wondering what a 10-year-old might serve for an entire audience, I asked what dinner could be. They listed off a plethora of items such as blackberries, soda pop, and Top Ramen. "Would you cook the Top Ramen?" I asked, and they said no, that it was fine hard and they enjoyed eating it that way anyway.
They also mentioned nachos—one girl's mom came outside and the girl asked if they could run to the store sometime to buy some nachos, and her mom asked if she'd be using her own money. This brought up the topic of whether they'd be charging admission to the play. I told them the pros and cons of charging both high and low amounts of money. They argued with each other and decided on 50¢ per ticket, although one boy thought that was too high and said that 25¢ was fine. One girl didn't want to charge anything, but didn't want to leave empty-handed and wanted to charge 1¢ per ticket. I told them that they're likely to lose money if the cost of the food is more than the money they take in from admission, but they said they were fine with that and that they were going to use only the food that they already had, and therefore not lose any money.
Then one girl asked if I could help them make a program for their play. I told them that I'd charge them 5¢ per page for black and white prints or 10¢ for color, while leaving open how many prints they would need, secretly hoping that she'd ask for too many so that she would learn about overstocking or something like that. She decided that 10 black-and-white copies would do nicely. I then asked her to sketch up what she wanted it to look like, but before she got very far into that, her grandpa came driving into the cul-de-sac and she apparently dropped the idea.
I asked them when they would be showing the play—they said, "6:30". I said that's awfully close to dinnertime, and they said that they themselves would be serving dinner for the audience. Wondering what a 10-year-old might serve for an entire audience, I asked what dinner could be. They listed off a plethora of items such as blackberries, soda pop, and Top Ramen. "Would you cook the Top Ramen?" I asked, and they said no, that it was fine hard and they enjoyed eating it that way anyway.
They also mentioned nachos—one girl's mom came outside and the girl asked if they could run to the store sometime to buy some nachos, and her mom asked if she'd be using her own money. This brought up the topic of whether they'd be charging admission to the play. I told them the pros and cons of charging both high and low amounts of money. They argued with each other and decided on 50¢ per ticket, although one boy thought that was too high and said that 25¢ was fine. One girl didn't want to charge anything, but didn't want to leave empty-handed and wanted to charge 1¢ per ticket. I told them that they're likely to lose money if the cost of the food is more than the money they take in from admission, but they said they were fine with that and that they were going to use only the food that they already had, and therefore not lose any money.
Then one girl asked if I could help them make a program for their play. I told them that I'd charge them 5¢ per page for black and white prints or 10¢ for color, while leaving open how many prints they would need, secretly hoping that she'd ask for too many so that she would learn about overstocking or something like that. She decided that 10 black-and-white copies would do nicely. I then asked her to sketch up what she wanted it to look like, but before she got very far into that, her grandpa came driving into the cul-de-sac and she apparently dropped the idea.
